9505723 Blau Funds are requested to help support expenses for invited speakers for the 54th annual symposium of the Society for Developmental Biology (SDB), entitled, "Genes, Development and Cancer", which will be held August 26-29, 1995 at the University of California at San Diego. This year's symposium is organized by Helen M. Blau, current President of SDB, together with Nadia Rosenthal, Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, and will be attended by researchers and teachers interested in the study of development, including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. They expect that the meeting will be of medium size (300-400 registrants), and they encourage junior level attendance by providing them some financial support. The meeting will include a broad range of topics, following the extremely successful organization of talks and posters that was newly established for the past two years' SDB annual meetings. Plant, animal and microbial systems will all be represented in sessions organized around "themes" rather than specific systems or organisms. A particular focus will be the control of the cell cycle and its relationship to developmental processes and cancer. They plan 60 scientific talks, beginning with an opening evening keynote address. Highlighted during the next three days will be a series of one keynote and six plenary sessions that include eighteen exciting invited speakers. Additionally, there will be eight "minisymposia" arranged in two sessions (four minisymposia running in parallel during each session). The minisymposia will be organized and chaired by experts in the areas and at least two talks will be given by junior people in each, thus providing them with an opportunity to speak at the national level. Poster sessions will also provide opportunities for young people to present their work. They will be available for viewing during most of the meeting providing ample time for discussion. Reflecting the growing role of the SDB in th e affairs and concerns of its membership, this year's meeting will include three issue-oriented workshops on education, the concerns of women, and on the concerns of minorities. ***
