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GSA Conferences
This Friday, April
12, 2013, is the deadline
for
abstract submission for the
19th International C. elegans Meeting,
June 26-30, 2013 at the University of
California, Los Angeles. Don’t miss this
meeting that features past GSA Board member
(2007-2009) Victor Ambros (Univ
of Mass Med Sch) delivering the keynote address.
Invited plenary session speakers include:
Tony Hyman (Max Planck Inst, Dresden,
Germany); Benjamin Podbilewicz
(Technion Insrael Inst of Tech); GSA Secretary
Anne Villeneuve (Stanford Univ); and
Marian Walhout (Univ of Mass Med Sch).
Drosophila 2013 Recap
Congratulations
to the nine early career scientists –
three undergraduates, three graduate students
and three postdoctoral scholars – who
won the GSA Poster Awards at the
54th Annual Drosophila Research Conference
in Washington, D.C., April 3-7, 2013. The
recipients are: Undergrads – 1st- Emily
J. Simon (UNC at Chapel Hill); 2nd-
Susanna E. Brantley (Emory Univ); 3rd-
Marvin Nayan (Univ of Washington);
Graduate Students – 1st- Jermaine Ross
(NIH); 2nd- Rebecca A. Somer (Univ
of Utah Sch of Med); 3rd- Balint C.
Kacsoh (Emory Univ); Postdocs – 1st-
Miriam Osterfield (Princeton); 2nd-
Pam Vanderzalm (Univ of Chicago); and
3rd- Bahar H. Sahin (Bogazici
Universitesei, Istanbul, Turkey). For the
first time ever, winners were picked via
crowd-sourcing from among 745 eligible posters
submitted by early career researchers.
Nine students
who are undergraduate juniors and
seniors received
Victoria Finnerty Undergraduate Travel Awards
to attend the Drosophila Research
Conference and present their research. The nine students are:
Susanna E. Brantley, senior (Emory Univ);
Gina D. Castelvecchi, junior (Univ of
Wisc–Madison); Robert W. Fernandez,
senior (York College, CUNY, Queens);
Michelle A. Frazer, senior (Univ of
Mich–Ann Arbor); Samuel Hutton
Friedman, junior (Vanderbilt Univ);
Robert A. Gingras, junior (Hofstra Univ);
Gary Iacobucci, senior (SUNY at
Buffalo); Jihyun Irizarry,
senior (Cal State Univ–LA); Sierra K.
Mosticone-Wangansteen, senior
(Randolph-Macon College, VA). This was the
second year these travel grants were presented
in memory of Victoria Finnerty, a Drosophila
geneticist at Emory University and a passionate
undergraduate mentor and teacher. For more
information, see the
press release.
Congratulations to
Weizhe Hong, recipient
of the 2013 Larry Sandler Memorial Award for his
doctoral dissertation on “Cell Surface Codes for
Olfactory Circuit Assembly.” Weizhe
worked in Liqun Luo’s lab at Stanford University.
Also presented during the
Drosophila Conference were several of GSA’s 2013
awards. Past President (2010) Scott
Hawley (Stowers Inst) received the
George W. Beadle Award; Elaine
Ostrander (NHGRI/NIH) received the
Genetics Society of America Medal; and,
Jonathan K. Pritchard (HHMI, Univ of
Chicago) received the Edward Novitski
Prize.
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For photos of the conference and the
award presentations, see
GSA’s Facebook album. Also check out the beautiful still
image by Joanna Krzemień and the video
image by Pan Yufeng, who were winners of
the
2013 Drosophila Image Awards.
The GSA Journals
The April issue of
G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics
is online and has a wide range of articles
from using Drosophila as a model to understand parthenogenesis to an ultra-high-density genetic map of
lettuce. Other articles include a look at donor DNA
structure using ZFN-mediated gene targeting in Drosophila,
the public Biotinidase Gene Variants Registry, and the
genetic basis of ammonium toxicity resistance in a strain of
yeast isolated in sake breweries.
In GENETICS' latest
Educational Primer to help use primary literature in the
classroom, "'To
Bee or Not to Bee' Male or Female?", Andrew Schurko
unpacks the more challenging concepts presented in a paper
about alternative splicing and the sex determination cascade
in the Honeybee (Nissen
et al., published in GENETICS in November 2012). Schurko also provides discussion questions for educators, allowing them to use Nissen et al. as a springboard to discuss Apis
mellifera, demonstrate the application of molecular
genetic tools to better understand the regulation of
transcription and splicing, and explore the evolutionary
origins of genes by considering the functions of orthologs
and paralogs in different species.
Trainee Travel Awards
These are the final days to
apply for the
GSA Undergraduate Travel Awards for financial
support. If you are an undergraduate GSA member
who plans to attend and present your research at the
19th International C. elegans Meeting
at UCLA, June 26-30, apply now.
Deadline for application: Friday, April 12, 2013.
Career Development
College and university
faculty and instructional staff may wish to apply
to attend one of several regional
Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education
sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The
National Academies. These five-day workshops will help
participants enhance their
teaching skills to transform the undergraduate classroom.
Many GSA members have benefited from participation in past
Summer Institutes.
GSA’s Career Series has some new interviews!
Read about how these PhDs went from scientific training
in academia to a diversity of careers. New
interviews feature the
president of a graduate institute
and a scientist now
directing a university's training and
diversity office.
GSA Members in the News
Long-time GSA member Stephen
J. Elledge (Harvard Med Sch) is a recipient of a
2013 Canada Gairdner Award for his work in DNA
repair. Stephen was the 2005 recipient of the GSA
Medal. For more information, see the
Gairdner Awards website.
GSA members Joan Steitz
(Yale), Alison Gammie (Princeton) and
Emily Troemel (UCSD) were honored by the
American Society of Microbiology (ASM) with
awards for their contributions to the field of
microbiology. For more information, see
here.
Past GSA Board member (2000-2002)
and Nobel Laureate (2009) Elizabeth H. Blackburn
(UCSF) was featured in an April 8, 2013 article in the
New York Times that discusses her idea of a lab
test that measures telomeres. Since shortened
telomeres may be a sign of illness, she “thinks measuring
them could give doctors and patients a chance to intervene
early and maybe even prevent disease.”
Policy
Earlier today,
President Obama released his proposed budget for fiscal
year (FY) 2014, which includes increases for the
nation’s key science agencies over FY 2012 final funding
levels. In particular, the budget would fund the National
Institutes of Health at $31 billion (1.1% increase), the
National Science Foundation at $7.6 billion (8.4%
increase), USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research
Initiative at $383 million (37% increase), and the
Department of Energy Office of Science at $5 billion
(5.7% increase). GSA and our partners are combing through
the details and will have updates on the
GSA website.
Thousands of people
made a unified call for supporting biomedical research and
NIH at the
Rally for Medical Research on Monday April 8,
2013 in Washington, D.C. GSA was one of more than 200
partner organizations in the Rally, joining with others to
call on Congress for increasing support for science.
Speakers at the Rally included Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Rockefeller University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, actress Maura Tierney, and several patient
advocates. GSA was at the Rally and has a photo slideshow on
our Facebook page.
And
finally…
Yeast research in Oregon may get
official recognition as the state is poised to name
Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the
state’s official microbe. Although the
intention is to recognize Oregon’s microbrew movement, we
like to think it also honors yeast genetics research.
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Do you have a brief announcement to submit to GSA e-News?
E-news items include news about GSA members – new positions, book
publication, awards or grants received and obits; short policy
items; brief research news items and grant programs; and, award
nomination announcements.
Deadline for next issue:
April 19, 2013. Send items to Phyllis Edelman, pedelman@genetics-gsa.org. |
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