Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology 2012:

Register now for the Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Meeting, July 31-August 5, 2012 at Princeton University in New Jersey. Early (discounted) registration deadline is June 26, 2012. Housing registration deadline is June 24, 2012.

 

The Yeast meeting is a fabulous opportunity for graduate students and post-docs to interact with PIs whose research you may have only read about in journals. This meeting includes 76 plenary talks, 349 posters, 6 workshops, 1 New Technology symposium and informative GSA educational events. There are also the following awards and special presentations: Ira Herskowitz Award: Angelika Amon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lee Hartwell Lecture: Stan Fields, University of Washington, Seattle; Lifetime Achievement Award: John Pringle, Stanford University; Winge-Lindegren Address: Andrew Murray, Harvard University.

The abstract submission site  for the GSA sponsored Mouse Molecular Genetics Conference, October 2-6, 2012 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA, will be open until July 10, 2012. In addition to poster presentations, select abstracts will be chosen for platform presentations.

This is a busy week for GSA conferences. The Model Organisms to Human Biology meeting on cancer genetics has just wrapped up, and the International Conference on Zebrafish Development and Genetics is just beginning. You can follow news of both meetings on GSA’s Facebook page and on Twitter (hashtags #MOHB2012 and #ZFISH2012).

The GSA Journals

GENETICS welcomes Bruce A. Beutler, M.D. (UT Southwestern Med Ctr and Scripps) as an associate editor. Dr. Beutler won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Jules A. Hoffman, for their discoveries in the activation of innate immunity.

The June issues of GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics are now online!  There are lots of great papers in both journals.  Don’t miss GENETICS issue highlight: “APL-1, the Alzheimer's amyloid precursor protein in Caenorhabditis elegans, modulates multiple metabolic pathways throughout development,” pp. 493–507 by Collin Y. Ewald, Daniel A. Raps, and Chris Li.

Funding & Awards

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces a new Therapeutics Discovery program from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).  The goal of this NCATS program is to enable therapeutics discovery research through public-private collaborations between NIH, pharmaceutical company partners, and the biomedical research community in order to benefit public health.  The Therapeutics Discovery program consists of X02, UH2/UH3 and UH3 funding opportunity announcements.  NCATS has set aside up to $20M to fund 6-8 projects in FY2013.

NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse has issued a special notice seeking applications using JAX Diversity Outcross (DO) mice to identify variants associated with substance abuse, addiction, and treatment response. The DO mice were highlighted in a special block of articles published across GSA's two journals--GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics--this February.

The Foundation of the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) is offering the first Lurie Prize in Biomedical Research recognizing outstanding achievement by a promising young scientist in that field (“young” extends to age 52 in this case).  The $100,000 prize may be used as the awardee chooses. Deadline for nomination:  August 15, 2012, 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

Policy

The NIH has issued a request for information (RFI) on the content of the Biographical Sketch. There have been concerns that the current biosketch does not allow applicants to fully describe the nature, significance, and impact of their scientific accomplishments and capabilities. Further, some feel that it disproportionately advantages those with extensive publication records and unduly weighs publications in prestigious journals.  Deadline for RFI: June 29, 2012.

Last week, three reports with major implications for biomedical research were released: The National Research Council (NRC) report on research universities: Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation's Prosperity and Security, the draft summary of National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee to the Director (ACd) biomedical research workforce report, and the draft report of the NIH ACD working group on diversity.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction for NIH has approved a $100 million increase in funding for the agency fiscal year 2013.

Congratulations to Shanelle Joseph of Southern University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA) who received a Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) Program travel award to attend the 2012 GSA Model Organisms to Human Biology: Cancer Genetics Meeting in Washington, D.C. from June 17-20, 2012. These awards, which are funded by a grant from NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, are meant to promote the entry of underrepresented minority students, postdoctorates and scientists into the mainstream of the basic science community.

Other Meetings

The Big Island of Hawaii from December 9-14, 2012 is the site of the Auxin 2012 Conference.  This international conference on the plant hormone discovered nearly 75 years ago has 30 confirmed speakers.  Hotel registration is now available.

The 13th International Conference on Systems Biology is being held in Toronto, Canada August 19-23, 2012. The meeting will include many of the hot trends in systems biology including metabolomics, drug development, next gen sequencing, synthetic biology, and proteomics.