2009 Plant Metabolic Engineering GRC & Graduate Research Seminar, July 11-17, in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire

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The 2009 Plant Metabolic Engineering Gordon Conference & Graduate Research Seminar will take place July 11-17, 2009, at the Waterville Valley Resort in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. The Gordon Conferences continue to be considered among the top scientific meetings worldwide, attracting top researchers in settings that are conducive to developing interactions and exploring new horizons. This conference will continue to provide a setting for developing multidisciplinary collaborations essential to unravel the dynamic complexity of plant metabolic networks and advance basic and applied research in plant metabolic engineering. The approximately 130-150 speakers and participants are from the US and abroad, at all career levels, and represent institutions from academia, industry, private institutes, and federal laboratories. The conference will consist of nine plenary sessions on leading edge topics (including organization and evolution of metabolic pathways, systems biology approaches and metabolic networks, and understanding complex metabolism and agronomic traits). Broader Impacts Concerted efforts to recruit women, persons with disabilities, and scientists from underrepresented groups as speakers and participants have been expanded. In addition to the standard GRC, a Graduate Research Seminar (GRS) in Plant Metabolic Engineering will be held immediately before the GRC, which could serve as a template for future meetings. The GRS provides a unique venue for junior scientists (Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows) to present their research in a more relaxed setting in front of their peers and is designed to reach out to under-represented groups of students and pre-professionals. In 2005, graduate students and postdocs accounted for 11% and 18% of the participants to the GRC, highlighting the educational impact of this conference on young scientists. In 2007, 21% and 20% of the GRC participants were graduate students and postdocs, which may be attributable to the Graduate Research Seminar component of the conference. Greater than 40% of the GRS participants were women, all of who attended the GRC. Similar to the 2007 GRS, the 2009 GRS will be centered on "Roundtable Discussions", opportunities for participants to be exposed to and openly discuss issues related to the fields to be covered as well as the direction that they expect the school to take, providing the participants with an opportunity to establish ownership of the meeting. Participants to the GRS will be encouraged and expected to stay for the GRC, further enhancing the educational component of this conference. It is expected that the GRS will have a significant impact in attracting high caliber students and postdocs to the field of metabolic engineering, and provide significant mentoring and professional development opportunities for these aspiring, junior scientists.