Cyanobacteria are oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes that are the progenitors of chloroplasts in plants and algae. The objective of this project is to request financial support for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from US institutions to attend the 11th Cyanobacterial Workshop in St. Louis, Missouri.
Intellectual Merit Cyanobacteria provide the blueprint of oxygenic photosynthetic metabolism that supports the rest of the biosphere. Genome sequences of over 100 cyanobacterial strains, isolated from diverse ecological niches, have been determined. This has opened up new opportunities for intellectual interactions between researchers in traditional biological disciplines with those in physics, chemistry, computational sciences and engineering. This workshop will provide an informal forum to foster such interactions.
Broader Impact Cyanobacteria have recently attracted significant interest for carbon-negative production of bioenergy and biomaterials. This workshop will help educate non cyanobacteriologists to understand the life styles of these photosynthetic microbes. This workshop will emphasize the use of synthetic biology approaches, and will thus also help traditional cyanobacteriologists to understand emerging engineering approaches to utilize cyanobacterial biocatalysts. Overall, this workshop will cater to the needs of today's young scientists who are planning to use these photosynthetic organisms during their future career.
The 11th Workshop on Cyanobacteria was held August 7-11, 2013 in St. Louis, Missouri on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The workshop hosted over 200 registrants from 21 different countries. The Workshop schedule covered five themes: Genomics, Bioinformatics, and Diversity; Bioengineering in Cyanobacteria; Photosynthetic and Respiratory Metabolism; Stress Responses; and Cell Development and Differentiation. Through plenaries, discussion sessions, poster sessions, and a joint session with the 2013 Light Harvesting Satellite (a satellite meeting held in conjunction with the 16th International Congress on Photosynthesis) attendees were able to network, collaborate, and plan future research collaborations. In addition to the NSF support, additional funding was provided by industry and non-profit partners to help offset conference fees charged to participants. A total of 105 posters were prepared and presented over the course of the Workshop. Approximately 39% of the participants were female and almost a third came from outside the United States. Women comprised approximately 40% of the participants in the oral presentation and poster discussion forums. This number is appreciably higher than the participation rate of women in the 10th cyanobacterial workshop (32%). NSF funding was used to support travel costs for approximately 19 attendees, primarily graduate students, and cover full registration costs for another 20 graduate students.
