Voting for the 2013 GSA officers and members of the Board of Directors ends this week. You have until 11:59 pm ET this Friday to cast your ballot.  Current GSA members have received a registered voter code by e-mail and will receive one more reminder if they have not voted yet. 

The deadline for graduate students and postdocs to apply for the 2013 DeLill Nasser Awards for Professional Development in Genetics has been extended to Friday, October 19, 2012.  These $1,000 travel awards give early career researchers the opportunity to attend any national or international meeting or to enroll in a laboratory course occurring between January 1 and June 30, 2013. Applications require two letters of reference so don’t delay!

The GSA website is now accepting membership dues for 2013.  All 2012 members have received an e-mail renewal with a secure online payment option.  Join GSA today for the member benefits, including the following:

• discounted registration fees for GSA-sponsored conferences including next year’s 27th Fungal Genetics Conference, 54th Annual Drosophila Research Conference, and 19th International C. elegans Meeting;  
• individual subscription to GSA’s journal GENETICS;
• reduced charges for publishing in GSA’s journals GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics;
• eligibility for GSA awards including the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics, GSA Undergraduate Travel Awards, and GSA conference poster awards;
• discount subscriptions to other scientific publications;
• discounts for reagents and antibodies; and
• Ability to nominate, run for, and vote in election of GSA officers and directors and to serve on GSA committees.

The 54th Annual Drosophila Research Conference, April 3-7, 2013 in Washington, DC is accepting abstracts until Thursday, November 8, 2012. Submit your abstract now and avoid the last-minute deadline crush.  In addition, thesis advisors are encouraged to nominate their students for the Larry Sandler Memorial Lecture held the opening night of the Conference.  Any student completing a PhD in an area of Drosophila research between July 2011 and December 2012 is eligible to be nominated.  For more information, visit the website.

Attendees of the 5th Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators in January 2013 can register for housing until Tuesday, November 13, 2012.  For more information about the meeting and to make housing reservations, visit the website.

The website for 27th Fungal Genetics Conference, March 12-17, 2013 in Pacific Grove, CA is open and accepting abstracts, meeting registration and housing reservations.  Sign up early to ensure your place at this conference because space is limited.  Regine Kahmann (Max Planck Inst for Terrestrial Microbiology), molecular phytopathologist, who studies smut disease in maize, will present the Perkins/Metzenberg Lecture.

Congratulations to those receiving GSA poster awards at the recent Mouse Molecular Genetics Conference: graduate students Marieke Cajal (CNRS) and Tanvi Sinha (Univ of Alabama at Birmingham) and postdocs Osamu Masui (RIKEN) and Mark Michael Kennedy (NIH/NCI).

The October issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics is online with articles about yeast, tomato, Drosophila, E. coli, C. elegans, catfish, mouse, and more!

One of the October highlights in the journal GENETICS is the article by Qiaoning Guan et al. on cellular memory of stress treatment by S. cerevisiae.  Barry Starr’s amusing and interesting blog post, “How to Remember Without a Brain,” spotlights this article on the Saccharomyces Genome Database website.

Members in the News

Congratulations to GSA members David B. Allison (Univ of Alabama at Birmingham), Shelley L. Berger (Univ of Penn), Nancy M. Bonini (HHMI and Univ of Penn) and Terry R. Magnuson (UNC –Chapel Hill) who were elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies. Members are elected annually by their colleagues who are current members with acknowledgment of their achievements and commitment to service in their fields. It is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

Congratulations to GSA member Michael N. Hall (Biozentrum, Univ of Basel), who was awarded the 2012 Marcel Benoist Prize, sometimes called the Swiss Nobel Prize, for his “groundbreaking studies in the field of cell biology on cell growth and the development of cancer.”  Hall and his colleagues discovered the protein kinase Target of Rapamycin (TOR) and have elucidated its role as a “central controller of cell growth and metabolism.”  The Marcel Benoist Prize is named for a French lawyer who left his estate for an award that makes “major contributions in disciplines significant to human life,” which has been awarded annually since 1920 to scientists working in Switzerland.

Funding News

The US Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture has issued a request for applications for its Foundational Program, which funds research in six priority areas to build a foundation of knowledge in fundamental and applied food and agricultural sciences critical for solving current and future societal challenges. The priority areas include plant and animal health, production, and products; food safety, nutrition, and health; renewable energy, natural resources, and environment; and agriculture systems and technology. Letters of intent for most areas are due in November 2012 for funding of up to $500,000.

The National Science Foundation has issued a new version of its Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide that is effective for proposals submitted or due on or after January 14, 2013.

The National Institutes of Health has announced that until a final fiscal year 2013 funding bill is enacted, it will issue non-competing grant awards at a level below that indicated on the most recent Notice of Award, generally up to 90% of the previously committed level.

Thank you to the GSA members who have taken part in the “We Are Research” campaign to show the importance of scientific research by posting a picture or making a video (pictured: Harman Lab, Kansas State). We continue to encourage you to stay involved, by inviting others to your lab, giving a public lecture, and signing-up to be an advocate for research. See what others have posted on the GSA Facebook page or on the We Are Research page—and add your own contributions.

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has released a new series of factsheets describing the value of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in congressional districts across the United States. These factsheets include the level of NIH funding and examples of how NIH-funded research has improved health, strengthened the local economy, increased innovation and trained the next generation of scientists. How does your district stack up?