Protein phosphatases, from molecules to networks

The third EMBO-sponsored 'Europhosphatases' meeting brought together 180 participants with a wide range of backgrounds and research interests to discuss the current status of research on phosphatases. It became clear at this meeting that the field is very active, and just as diverse as its members. This report highlights some of the transformative research presented at the meeting.     

Validity of a structured method of selecting abstracts for a plastic surgical scientific meeting

In 1999, the European Association of Plastic Surgeons accepted a structured method to assess and select the abstracts that are submitted for its yearly scientific meeting. The two criteria used to evaluate whether such a selection method is accurate were reliability and validity. The authors previously established this method to be reliable on the basis of a prospective evaluation of the selection process used for the 2000 meeting of the European Association of Plastic Surgeons. It is more difficult to assess the validity of this method because there is no objective standard of quality of a scientific abstract against which the accuracy of selection can be assessed. This study statistically evaluated the accuracy of the meeting participants' assessment of presentations made during the meeting as the criterion standard for abstract selection on the basis of data obtained from the 2002 selection process. The authors evaluated the interobserver repeatability among five meeting participants of selecting the best presentations, the validity of the method of abstract selection after this criterion standard had been established, and the validity of reviewers' rating of abstracts as indicators of the scientific value of the actual presentations. The authors conclude that the assessment of platform presentations at a plastic surgical meeting is reliable. Accepting this assessment as the criterion standard, however, they could not prove the validity of their selection method or the validity of the reviewers' rating of abstracts as an indicator of the scientific value of the actual presentations.     

ESCCAR international congress on Rickettsia and other intracellular bacteria

The European Society for the study of Chlamydia, Coxiella, Anaplasma and Rickettsia (ESCCAR) held his triennial international meeting in Lausanne. This meeting gathered 165 scientists from 28 countries and all 5 continents, allowing efficient networking and major scientific exchanges.Topics covered include molecular and cellular microbiology, genomics, as well as epidemiology, veterinary and human medicine. Several breakthroughs have been revealed at the meeting, such as (i) the presence of CRISPR (the “prokaryotic immune system”) in chlamydiae, (ii) an Anaplasma effector involved in host chromatin remodelling, (iii) the polarity of the type III secretion system of chlamydiae during the entry process revealed by cryo-electron tomography.Moreover, the ESCCAR meeting was a unique opportunity to be exposed to cutting-edge science and to listen to comprehensive talks on current hot topics.     

The first junior European Calcium Society meeting: calcium research across scales,Kingdoms and countries

The first junior European Calcium Society online meeting, held October 20–21, 2020, aimed to promote junior researchers in the Ca²⁺ community. The meeting included four scientific sessions, covering Ca²⁺ research from molecular detail to whole organisms. Each session featured one invited speaker and three speakers selected based on submitted abstracts, with the overall aim of actively involving early-career researchers. Consequently, the meeting underlined the diversity of Ca²⁺ physiology, by showcasing research across scales and Kingdoms, as presented by a correspondingly diverse speaker panel across career stages and countries. In this meeting report, we introduce the visions of the junior European Calcium Society board and summarize the meeting content.     

The 19th Ion Channel Meeting,September 2008, France

The annual meeting of the French Ion Channels Society, held on the Mediterranean coast of France, is aimed at gathering the international scientific community working on various aspects of ion channels. In this report of the 19th edition of the meeting, held in September 2008, we summarize selected symposia on aspects of the ion channel field from fundamental to clinical research. The meeting is an opportunity for leading investigators as well as young researchers to present and discuss their recent advances and future challenges in the ion channel field.     

Patterning the nervous system through development and evolution

We report presentations and discussions at a meeting held in May 2010 in the small village of Minerve, in the south of France. The meeting was devoted mostly but not exclusively to patterning in the nervous system, with an emphasis on two model organisms, Drosophila Melanogaster and Danio rerio. Among the major issues presented were fear and its neuroanatomy, life in darkness, patterning of sensory systems, as well as fundamental issues of neural connectivity, including the role of lineage in neural development. Talks on large-scale patterning and re-patterning, and on the mouse as a third model system, concluded the meeting.     

ISMB 2003 Bio-ontologies SIG and Sixth Annual Bio-ontologies Meeting Report

The Annual Bio-Ontologies meeting (http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/ stevens/meeting03/) has now been running for 6 consecutive years, as a special interest group (SIG) of the much larger ISMB conference. It met in Brisbane, Australia, this summer, the first time it was held outside North America or Europe. The bio-ontologies meeting is 1 day long and normally has around 100 attendees. This year there were many fewer, no doubt a result of the distance, global politics and SARS. The meeting consisted of a series of 30 min talks with no formal peer review or publication. Talks ranged in style from fairly formal and complete pieces of work, through works in progress, to the very informal and discursive. Each year's meeting has a theme and this year it was 'ontologies, and text processing'. There is a tendency for those submitting talks to ignore the theme completely, but this year's theme obviously struck a chord, as half the programme was about ontologies and text analysis (http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/ stevensr/meeting03/programme.html). Despite the smaller size of the meeting, the programme was particularly strong this year, meaning that the tension between allowing time for the many excellent talks, discussion and questions from the floor was particular keenly felt. A happy problem to have!     

WNTers in La Jolla

A 'traditional' Wnt meeting, the first of which occurred over two decades ago as a meeting of the laboratories of Harold Varmus and Roel Nusse, was held at the University of California, San Diego, in June 2007. Organized by Karl Willert, Anthony Wynshaw-Boris and Katherine Jones, the meeting was attended by nearly 400 scientists interested in ;all things Wnt', including Wnt signal transduction mechanisms, and Wnt signaling in evolutionary and developmental biology, stem cell biology, regeneration and disease. Themes that dominated the meeting included the need for precise control over each step of the signal transduction mechanism and developing therapeutics for diseases caused by altered Wnt-signaling.     

Transgenic Technology meeting 2008 in Toronto, Canada: a meeting report

In a history that goes back to 1999, the Transgenic Technology meetings started out in Sweden and over the years began to attract a growing community of technicians and researchers mainly from Europe. As the meetings started to attract an expanding worldwide audience, the community decided to found the International Society for Transgenic Technologies at the Barcelona meeting in 2005. The 2007 convention was held at Brisbane, Australia, and in 2008, the 8th Transgenic Technology meeting was held for the second time on behalf of ISTT and for the second time outside of Europe in Toronto, Canada. Due to its excellent program with over 400 participants the meeting was able to attract the highest number of delegates of all past TT meetings. With extended times for plenary discussions about technical and organizational aspects, as well as top level scientific presentations, both technicians and scientists enjoyed this as an extremely fruitful meeting from which they could take home solutions for daily routines as well as new insights and ideas for coming projects.     

Barrels XXXII meeting report: whiskers in the windy city

Abstract

The 32nd Annual Barrels meeting was hosted at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois on October 17th and 18th, 2019. The annual meeting brings together researchers who utilize the rodent whisker-to-barrel system as a means to understand cortical function and development. This year’s meeting focussed on social behaviours, development and cerebellar functions within the barrel system and beyond.     

Recognition of Dominance in the Big-Clawed Snapping Shrimp ( Alpheus Heterochaelis Say 1818) Part I: Individual or Group Recognition?

The snapping shrimp Alpheus heterochaelis uses its snapper claw to produce fast water jets in fights. Here we investigate whether these shrimp are able to recognise their opponents (individually or on a group level) in order to reduce fighting costs and risk of injury. Losers meeting familiar or unfamiliar winners differ from those meeting inexperienced opponents by showing immediate escapes after a contact as well as hardly any aggressive behaviours (e.g. water jets). There is a significant decrease in aggressiveness in these losers and this is maintained for days. In contrast, losers meeting inexperienced opponents show a slow stepwise decrease in aggressiveness after losing on several consecutive days. Thus, snapping shrimp can recognise the dominance status of the opponent. The lack of behavioural differences in losers meeting familiar or unfamiliar winners favours recognition on a group level rather than individual recognition.     

Vaccines and global health

Vaccines have made a major contribution to global health in recent decades but they could do much more. In November 2011, a Royal Society discussion meeting, 'New vaccines for global health', was held in London to discuss the past contribution of vaccines to global health and to consider what more could be expected in the future. Papers presented at the meeting reviewed recent successes in the deployment of vaccines against major infections of childhood and the challenges faced in developing vaccines against some of the world's remaining major infectious diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), malaria and tuberculosis. The important contribution that development of more effective veterinary vaccines could make to global health was also addressed. Some of the social and financial challenges to the development and deployment of new vaccines were reviewed. The latter issues were also discussed at a subsequent satellite meeting, 'Accelerating vaccine development', held at the Kavli Royal Society International Centre. Delegates at this meeting considered challenges to the more rapid development and deployment of both human and veterinary vaccines and how these might be addressed. Papers based on presentations at the discussion meeting and a summary of the main conclusions of the satellite meeting are included in this issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.     

The 20th Ion Channel Meeting September 2009, France

The French Ion Channel society has existed since 1989 and its main goal is to annually organize a scientific meeting. This meeting, which gathers young and senior French scientists, provides a great opportunity for the exchange and interaction among the ion channel research community. Additionally, for many years, the French ion channel meeting has attracted a significant number of scientists from different European countries, elevating the discussion of new insights and advances, as well as aiding in the establishment of collaborations. In this report, we summarize the five symposia selected for their novelty and importance in human channelopathies, neuroplasticity, ion channel regulations, intracellular ion channels and plant physiology.     

Interventional cardiology and general cardiology: divided by a common speciality? From George Bernard Shaw. America and England are two countries divided by a common language.

For a couple of years now, the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) consists of two separate meetings: the conventional ACC meeting and the SCAI-ACCi2 (Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions) meeting. The SCAI-ACCi2 meeting is specifically intended for interventional cardiologists and in order to attend the meeting one has to pay either a special entrance fee for this meeting or an additional fee to attend both meetings. Even Fellows of the ACC are not allowed into this dedicated interventional meeting (unless they pay the additional entrance fee). At the ACC.08 meeting in Chicago this year, the general cardiologist (ACC.08) could be recognised by a blue badge and the interventional cardiologist by a yellow badge (SCAI.ACCi2).     

Meeting report and abstracts from the American Association of Tissue Banks annual meeting; 6–9 September 2008, Chicago,Illinois USA

The 32nd annual meeting of the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB) was highly praised by its participants and was the largest attended meeting in the AATB’s history. Highlights included a record number of candidates taking the examination to become a certified tissue banking specialist (CTBS) and the acceptance of over thirty abstract submissions using, for the first time, an on-line submission, review, and grading system. This meeting’s success was made possible by the exceptional participation of tissue bank professionals such as Medical Directors, managers, consultants, and technical experts; valuable input from international colleagues; and the involvement of federal regulators for cell and tissue banking. Both scientific and non-scientific abstracts that were accepted and displayed at the meeting are reproduced in this report.     

Barrels XXIII: Barrels by the shore

The 23rd annual Barrels meeting was held on the University of California, San Diego campus and highlighted the latest advances in the whisker-to-barrel pathway and beyond. The annual meeting brought together investigators from a dozen countries to present their data in posters and short talks. The meeting focused on several themes, first the barrel system was used as a model to study the consequences that result from alterations in the normal pattern(s) of development. A second session focused on what happens to whisker information once it leaves the layer IV barrel. A third session addressed issues of coding within the barrel system and a final session highlighted the latest advances in the engineering of transgenic mouse lines. The meeting highlighted the utility of the barrel system to study cortical circuitry in the normal and pathological state.     

Barrels XXVIII take the Windy City by storm

The 28th annual Barrels meeting was held prior to the Society for Neuroscience meeting in October 2015 at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois. The meeting brought together researchers focused on the rodent sensorimotor system. The meeting focused on modern techniques to decipher cortical circuits, social interactions among rodents, and decision-making. The meeting allowed investigators to share their work via short talks, poster presentations, and a data blitz.     

14th International Workshop on Ataxia-Telangiectasia ATW2012

The fourteenth international Ataxia-Telangiectasia Workshop 2012 (ATW2012) (www.atw2012.com) on ataxia-telangiectasia (AT) and the role of the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene in DNA repair, neurological disease, cancer and related topics was held from February 07 to 11, 2012 in Delhi, India. The international ATW2012 meeting reported the latest advances in ATM research as well as potential therapeutic treatments for A-T. The meeting was attended by a productive mix of scientists, ranging from those prominent in the initial characterization of the underlying genetic defect to young scientists just entering the field. In broad terms, three main themes were discussed at the meeting: first, a wealth of new details emerged on DNA damage signaling/repair mechanisms for which ATM is a critical element; secondly, important functions for ATM in previously unrelated cellular pathways were identified; and thirdly, new physiological effects and potential therapeutic treatments related to A-T were presented. This report summarizes below a sampling of the many interesting results from the meeting.     

Recent advances in basic neurosciences and brain disease: from synapses to behavior

Understanding basic neuronal mechanisms hold the hope for future treatment of brain disease. The 1st international conference on synapse, memory, drug addiction and pain was held in beautiful downtown Toronto, Canada on August 21–23, 2006. Unlike other traditional conferences, this new meeting focused on three major aims: (1) to promote new and cutting edge research in neuroscience; (2) to encourage international information exchange and scientific collaborations; and (3) to provide a platform for active scientists to discuss new findings. Up to 64 investigators presented their recent discoveries, from basic synaptic mechanisms to genes related to human brain disease. This meeting was in part sponsored by Molecular Pain, together with University of Toronto (Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology as well as Center for the Study of Pain). Our goal for this meeting is to promote future active scientific collaborations and improve human health through fundamental basic neuroscience researches. The second international meeting on Neurons and Brain Disease will be held in Toronto (August 29–31, 2007).