SDB 71st Annual Meeting Report

 

The SDB 71st Annual Meeting was held in association with the Sociedad Española de Biología del Desarrollo (SEBD) at Hilton Bonaventure Hotel in Montreal, Canada, July 19-22, 2012. 

 

The final program of the meeting is at: http://www.sdbonline.org/2012/SDB2012Prog_final.pdf and the full abstracts are at: http://www.sdbonline.org/2012/abstracts.htm.   

 

Numbers:  Total attendance was 611 people from 26 different countries.  There were 349 PI and postdoctoral fellows, 238 students and 24 exhibitors.  477 abstracts were submitted, of which 401 were poster presentations. 

 

SDB hosted guests from SEBD Angela Nieto (SEBD Presidente), Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, Spain; Miguel Manzanares, Centro Nacional de Investigacines Cardiovasculares, Madrid, Spain; and two postdoctoral fellows who participated in the Hilde Mangold Postdoctoral Symposium, José Bessa, Centro Andaluz de Biologia del Desarrollo, Andaluz, Spain, and Verona Villar-Cerviño, Universidad Miguel Hernandez, Alicante, Spain.

 

SDB also hosted Stephen Fleenor from the University of Oxford and the British SDB’s 2012 best student poster competition winner, a longtime exchange program between the two societies across the ocean.  SDB’s 2012 best student poster winner, John Young of UC Berkeley will present his winning poster at the BSDB 2013 spring meeting.    

 

The 2012 SDB awards were given to:

·       Edwin G. Conklin Medal – Cliff Tabin, Harvard University, Boston, MA.

·       Developmental Biology-SDB Lifetime Achievement Award – Antonio Garcia Bellido, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain.

·       Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize – Steve Farber, Carnegie Institution for Science, Baltimore, MD and Jamie Shuda, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, for their project BioEYES.

 

Best postdoctoral presentation competition at the Hilde Mangold Postdoctoral Symposium:

            1st:  Sunjin Lee-Wölfel, Yale University, New Haven, CT.  Prize – Travel to present the paper at the SEBD IX Meeting, Granada, Spain.  Forward genetics identifies Edf1 as a novel regulator of epidermal development and stem cell quiescence.  (abst #201) 

            1st:  Elizabeth Rideout, University of Calgary, Canada.  Prize – Travel to present the paper at the SEBD IX Meeting, Granada, Spain.  Drosophila Maf1 controls body size and developmental timing by modulating tRNAiMet synthesis and systemic insulin signaling. (abst #283)

            2nd/NIGMS 50th Anniversary Award:  David Matus, Duke University, Durham, NC.  Prize – Travel to present the poster at the NIGMS 50th Anniversary Symposium, Bethesda, MD.  Cell cycle exit is required for all cell invasive behavior.  (abst #384)    

 

Best student poster competition:

Undergraduate                        1st:  Brian Rabe, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA.  Prize - books.  The characterization of GABA α and GABA β receptor subunits and the role of calcium activity in the developing nervous system of Xenopus.  (abst #391)

                                    Runner-up:  Jesus Ayala, University of Puerto Rico-Humacao, PR.  He is also

winner of best developmental biology poster competition at the 2011 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), holder of a FASEB-MARC/SDB travel award.  Prize - book.  Investigating glial cell abnormalities in lpr-1 and let-4 mutants.  (abst #237)

                                    Runner-up:  Joseph Salomone, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH.  Prize - book.  Identifying cis-regulatory element changes that underlie gene expression and phenotypic evolution between species.  (abst #210)

 

Graduate         1st:  John Young, University of California, Berkeley, CA.  Prize - Travel to present the paper at the BSDB 2013 spring meeting.  The transcription factor Sal-like 1 (Sall-1) is a direct transcriptional target of Wnt/beta-catenin signaling and regulates neural patterning along with morphogenesis.  (abst #259)

                        2nd:  Nathaniel Peters, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.  Prize - genesis cash

award ($1000).  Mirror and Paxillin act downstream of Trantrack69 to regulate tube morphogenesis in the Drosophila ovary.  (abst #138)

3rd /NIGMS 50th Anniversary Award:  Corinne Fairchild, University of Minnesota,

Minneapolis, MN.  Prize - Travel to present the poster at the NIGMS 50th Anniversary Symposium, Bethesda, MD.  Tetraspanin18 restricts neural crest migration by stabilizing epithelial Cadherin6B.  (abst #356)

4th:  Emily Mis, Yale University, New Haven, CT.  Prize - SDB cash award ($200). 

Forward genetics reveals Xylt1 as a key, conserved regulator of bone development.  (abst #82)

 

Photos (click on photo to enlarge)

 


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Photo legends

#1.  2012 SDB awardees (left to right) - Antonio Garcia Bellido (Developmental Biology-SDB Lifetime Achievement Award), Cliff Tabin (Edwin G. Conklin Medal), Steve Farber (Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize)

 

#2.  Antonio Garcia Bellido between Presidents, Angela Nieto of SEBD and Mike Levine of SDB

 

#3.  The Fly Fab 4: Mike Levine, Antonio Garcia Bellido, Peter Lawrence and Bill McGinnis

 

#4.  SDB and BSDB exchange: BSDB 2012 spring poster winner Stephen Fleenor (L) and SDB 2012 poster winner John Young (R)

 

#5.  Postdoctoral presentation winners (L – R): Elizabeth Rideout, Sunjin Lee-Wölfel and David Matus

 

#6.  Graduate student poster winners flanked between NIGMS representative Susan Haynes and SDB Junior Faculty representative Laura Gammill:  Emily Mis, Corinne Fairchild, Nathaniel Peters and John Young, under pink lighting courtesy of the band.

 

#7.  Laura Gammill and undergraduate student poster winner Brian Rabe

 

#8.  Undergraduate student poster runner-up Joseph Salomone

 

#9.  Susan Haynes of NIGMS and SDB President-elect Vivian Irish announcing postdoctoral awards

 

#10.  Susan Haynes of NIGMS and David Matus, SDB winner of the NIGMS 50th anniversary postdoc award

 

#11.  SDB Junior Faculty Rep and organizer of the best student poster competition Laura Gammill congratulates poster winner John Young

 

#12.  At the awards banquet

 

#13.  Dancing to the music of Santana  

 

#14.  Listening to the band

 

#15.  Dance floor

 

#16.  Dancers and the band

 

#17.  Jeff Starzenski (lead singer) and his band “The Ultimate Tribute to Santana” provided the grand finale to the SDB 71st Annual Meeting.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjWnregFabM