Keystone Symposia Announces 2012 Conference Season

SILVERTHORNE, Colo., Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology is pleased to announce its roster of 55 conferences in a wide range of life science disciplines for the 2011-2012 meeting season, which runs from October 2011 through May 2012.

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The season will kick off with the conference on "Malnutrition, Gut-Microbial Interactions and Mucosal Immunity to Vaccines" taking place November 7-11, 2011 in New Delhi, India. A part of the Keystone Symposia Global Health Series, which is generously supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the meeting will be the first for the organization in India. Typically, six infectious disease meetings each year fall within this Series. While four Global Health Series meetings (on HIV Pathogenesis, HIV Vaccines, Fungal Pathogens and Protozoan Parasites) will be held in North America, the final Global Health Series meeting of the season will also be held in the developing world in Kampala, Uganda in May 2012 on "Drug Resistance and Persistence in Tuberculosis." Global Health Travel Awards provide funding for eligible investigators from developing countries to attend any of the meetings in question regardless of their location.

Additional conference topics in 2012 include aging, Alzheimer's, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes/metabolic disease, epigenomics, immunology, organ regeneration, pharmacology, rheumatoid arthritis, stem cells and traumatic brain injury. Meetings will take place throughout the Rocky Mountain West of the U.S. and Canada as well as in several urban locations including Boston, Massachusetts; Dublin, Ireland; Stockholm, Sweden; and Vancouver, Canada.

Abstract and scholarship deadlines begin September 15, 2011 for the earliest January 2012 conferences.

About Keystone Symposia and the Conferences

Originally known as UCLA Symposia, Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, has been conducting internationally renowned, open scientific conferences since 1972. It has been headquartered in Summit County, Colorado since 1990, when the organization left the University of California at Los Angeles.  Annually, Keystone Symposia holds more than 50 meetings involving more than 13,000 scientists from around the world. The organization will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2012 (the first meeting was held on membrane research in Squaw Valley, California in March 1972).

Conferences are typically three to four full days in length. While not required, submission of an abstract is encouraged as organizers typically select short talk speakers based on abstract submission. This presents a means for early-career scientists to be featured on the programs alongside established experts.

Conferences are planned based on a rigorous peer-review process more than 18 months in advance, tapping into the expertise of a Scientific Advisory Board comprised of more than 60 leading life scientists from around the world and supplemented by the input of Programming Consultants. Some topics such as HIV and diabetes recur annually, while others are held less frequently. Some meetings are held jointly with another to stimulate greater crosstalk. Scientists are asked to volunteer as each meeting's program organizers, and there is a deliberate attempt to vary these from one occurrence of the meeting to the next, as well as to include female and underrepresented minority scientists, to encourage diversity and a broader perspective.

Keystone Symposia aims to make its conferences open, accessible and affordable to all. Discounted registration fees are offered to students, and scholarships and underrepresented minority scholarships are available for students and postdoctoral fellows. Rates are the same for attendees from both industry and academia.

In 2012, a new Early-Career Investigator Travel Award is being offered for underrepresented minority Assistant Professors (or industry equivalent) with a particular scientific problem to solve. The next application deadline is December 1, 2011 for conferences occurring March – May 2012.

Those interested in attending a Keystone Symposia conference should keep in mind that scholarship application and abstract deadlines typically precede a meeting by four months, late-breaking abstract deadlines by three months and early registration deadlines by two months. Signing up by the early registration deadline saves US$150 on the later registration fee.

More information on Keystone Symposia can be found at www.keystonesymposia.org, and full details on the 2012 meeting series can be viewed at www.keystonesymposia.org/2012meetings.

Yvonne M. Psaila
Director of Marketing & Communications
Keystone Symposia on Molecular & Cellular Biology
(970) 262-2676
[email protected]

SOURCE Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology