The 2012 FASEB meeting on Yeast Chromosome Structure, Replication and Segregation will be held July 15-20, 2012 in at the Steamboat Grand Resort in Steamboat Springs, CO. The meeting is unique in that it brings together scientists doing basic research involving chromosome behavior in two yeast models, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The meeting covers a wide range of topics, including: DNA replication, chromosome structure and evolution, chromatin structure and gene expression, telomeres and silencing, recombination and chromosome rearrangements, mitosis and meiosis, cell cycle regulation, kintechores, spindles and cytokinesis.
Broader Impacts Attention has been paid to recruiting a diverse group of speakers, including both senior and early-career investigators. Support will be provided as scholarships to students and postdoctoral fellows chosen based on need; scholarships will be limited to one per research lab, to ensure broad use of the funds. Priority will be given to underrepresented minorities.
FASEB SUMMER RESEARCH CONFERENCE Yeast Chromosome Structure, Replication & Segregation July 15-20, 2012 Steamboat Springs, CO Organizers: Scott Keeney, Frank Uhlmann, Virginia Zakian The 2012 Yeast Chromosome Structure, Replication and Segregation meeting was held in Steamboat Springs, CO from July 15 to 20, 2012. This meeting has been held every other year for over 20 years. Its goal is to bring together leading researchers in the field of yeast chromosome biology with graduate students, post doctoral fellows, and other faculty. The topics covered in the meeting include DNA replication, DNA repair, recombination, chromosome stability, mitotic and meiotic spindle structure, cell cycle control and telomere biology. There were 32 invited speakers (3 or 4 in each of the eight sessions). There were also 2 to 4 shorter talks in each session that were chosen from submitted abstracts. The organizers made every effort to provide speaking opportunities for young scientists and to include speakers who were not "regulars" at the meeting. Thus, 12 of the 19 short talks were from junior level faculty or faculty who had not spoken at this meeting recently, and five were from students or postdocs. Question and answer sessions after talks were quite lively and involved a large fraction of the attendees. There were 164 participants at the meeting, which we considered remarkable given the difficult economic and funding climate Attendees were geographically diverse (74% North America, 19% Europe, 7% Asia). Women were well represented as 38% of attendees, 5 of 8 Session Chairs, and 44% of invited speakers, including the keynote speaker, were female. There were four poster sessions in which ~100 posters were presented. Poster sessions were held after dinner, a change in the normal schedule for the meeting, which was extremely successful at boosting attendance. Each poster was displayed for two full days, and although space was tight, we were pleased that students and post docs had a longer period to present their work. The Steamboat site is particularly good at fostering interactions as it was very easy to find people, everyone ate together, and the site is all contained in a single building. Funding was secured from several sources including FASEB SRC, NIH/NIEHS, NSF, and March of Dimes. EMBO generously sponsored the participation (registration and travel) for Camilla Sjögren from the Karolinska Institute. Several corporations provided additional support: Abcam, Biomed Central Ltd., and CellASIC. Funds were used to defray registration costs of invited speakers, to pay full registration and travel for the keynote speaker, and to provide a cash bar during the poster sessions and a cash bar and DJ during the final evening. We are grateful for this support. In summary, the co-organizers were extremely pleased with the outcome of the meeting as judging from enthusiastic feedback from many of the attendees we are confident of its success. Scott Keeney, Frank Uhlmann, Ginger Zakian Organizers of the 2012 Yeast Chromosome Structure
