Title: 25th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology. The American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology (ASGSB) requests partial financial support, $19,975, for the conduct of its 25th Annual Meeting. The meeting is scheduled for November 5-8, 2009 at the Marriott City Center Hotel, Raleigh, N.C. The meeting is the only one of its kind in the U.S. that provides a forum for the reporting, discussion, and publication of new research results in the areas of space and gravitational biology. Meeting attendance is expected to be approximately 160 including students. Highlights of the 2009 meeting include symposia on, Closed Loop Regenerative Life Support Systems, Bioengineering and Synthetic Biology, and the ISS as a National Lab. A special lecture and abstract session on the musculoskeletal system is scheduled, and a prominent person has been invited as the keynote speaker at the annual banquet (i.e., Oliver Smithies, 2008 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine). The financial support requested will be applied to the cost of symposia speakers travel stipends, student travel stipends, hotel food and beverage costs, projection equipment usage costs, and the publication of peer-reviewed meeting presentations in the Society's journal, Gravitational and Space Biology.
25th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology The annual meeting is the keystone event of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology (ASGSB) whose membership works to benefit mankind by exploring biology to bridge Earth and Space. The ASGSB, founded in 1984, provides a unique forum to foster research, education and professional development in the multidisciplinary fields of gravitational and space biology. The ASGSB annual meeting is the only U.S. meeting that brings together a diverse group of scientists and engineers, both established and student members, to facilitate the exchange of data from basic and applied biological research in space and on the Earth and also to provide opportunities to build collaborations among new and established members of the research community. The members represent academia, government and industry interests bonded by a common goal of understanding how living organisms respond to altered gravity and extraterrestrial environments. The Society's mission embraces education and outreach to the general public, K-12 students and teachers, Congress, NASA, the NIH, NSF, and other domestic and foreign governmental agencies. Each spring, the Society publishes an annual scientific publication, Gravitational and Space Biology, which includes peer-reviewed original articles including those derived from featured symposia presentations at its annual meeting. The ASGSB also provides educational aids to students, teachers and researchers. These materials and other information describing the nature and activities of the Society are available on the ASGSB website at http://asgsb.org/index.php. The annual meeting, planned for November 5-8, 2009, at the Marriott City Center Hotel in Raleigh, N.C., follows a common format that has proven successful throughout the Society's twenty-four year history. The daily scientific sessions begin with a three-hour symposium on a topic of current interest to the membership. The three symposia selected for the 2009 annual meeting are: Closed-Loop Regenerative Life Support for Sustainable Habitation in Space and on Earth Biological Engineering and Synthetic Biology The ISS as a National Lab The symposia are followed in the afternoon by poster and oral sessions presenting the scientific results of recent spaceflight and ground-based research. Each abstract presentation is allocated 15 min including a couple of minutes for questions. A special lecture on muscle disuse atrophy will be presented on Saturday, November 7th by Dr. Danny Riley of the Medical College of Wisconsin. The lecture will be followed by the afternoon oral abstract session which will focus on new research on the musculoskeletal system. An opening reception is held on the first night of the meeting followed by a banquet dinner with a keynote speaker on the second evening. Dr. Oliver Smithies, has been invited to deliver the keynote address at the 2009 meeting. Dr. Smithies shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for his work with embryonic stem cells. Two Governing Board meetings are held, one the night before the first day of sessions, and the second on the last morning of the meeting to install new Board members following the announcement of the Board elections at the Banquet. The various Society committees meet ad hoc throughout the meeting.
