SICB 2003 Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Jan. 4-8

Events

 

Attend SICB’s social events and use your free drink ticket! All events will take place at the Sheraton Centre Toronto.

Special Events

• Following tradition, there will be a Bartholomew Award/Lecture (click here for PDF file) and Dr. Hubert Vaudrey will give the Howard Bern Lecture.
• NSF will have program officers present to meet with members and discuss funding opportunities. NSF program officers will again be interested in hearing what members think should be supported by NSF.
• The Public Affairs Committee will sponsor two events at the Toronto meeting: The Evolution Town Meeting, a mostly open-mike forum featuring “Tales From the Front Lines.” SICB members are encouraged to come and share their experiences and strategies for dealing with assaults on the teaching of evolution; and the Media Workshop on “Building a Killer Website” featuring SICB’s own webmaster, Ruedi Birenheide. Ruedi will cover topics such as elements of good web page design, using common applications to build a web page, and how to include multimedia elements.
• Francesco Santini from DSEB will be presenting a workshop in conjunction with his symposium. This will be the latest installment of the Phylogenetics for Dummies series, which DSEB has been presenting.
• Guy Charmantier (Universit� Montpellier II, France) will present Crustaceans in Art on Tuesday, Jan. 7 from 6:30pm-7:30pm. For a summary click here (PDF format).

Student “First Timer” Orientation
If you have been selected as a student travel worker, you are required to attend the orientation; if you are registering as a student and and this is your first time at a SICB meeting, you are encouraged to join the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee on Saturday, January 4 from 5:00-6:00 pm, to learn about the benefits of the Annual Meeting, meet your fellow students, and receive tips on presentations at the meeting.

Welcome to Toronto Reception
The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology welcomes you to Toronto with a reception on Satursday, January 4, from 7:30-9:30pm. A cash bar will be available and snacks will be provided.

Companion Orientation/Continental Breakfast
All registered guests are welcome to join an informal gathering on Sunday, January 5, from 9:00-10:00 am. A knowledgeable local person will be on hand to let you know about some of the many fascinating facts and sightseeing opportunities that make Toronto famous.

Student/Postdoctoral Luncheon
The SICB Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee offers students an excellent opportunity to meet with fellow student members in an informal setting on Sunday, January 5, from 11:30 am-12:50pm.

SICB Business Meeting
The SICB Business Meeting will take place Tuesday, January 7, from 5:15 – 6:15 pm.

Student/Postdoc Workshop
Tuesday, January 7, 6:15-7:30 pm. This popular workshop is designed to address the needs of SICB’s developing scientists in an informal, discussion-oriented setting. Each year, academic faculty and other professionals are invited by the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee to spend part of an evening discussing issues of importance to student and postdoc members of the Society, including topics relating to jobs and career choices, research funding, and development of teaching skills. This is an excellent opportunity to ask questions directly from those currently holding academic/other positions and to gain insight on developing important aspects of one’s career.

SICB Society-Wide Evening Social in Honor of Students and Postdocs
Join your fellow SICB members for a Society-Wide Social on Tuesday, January 7, from 7:30 – 9:30 pm. Coffee, desserts and fruit will be served and a cash bar will be available.

American Microscopical Society
The AMS Presidential Addresses begin at 09:45 am on Tuesday, January 7, and are open to all. The AMS luncheon (see listing on the registration form to sign up for this) will follow the Past Presidential Addresses.

Mildred and Ralph Buchsbaum Prize for Excellence in Photomicrography
The American Microscopical Society is pleased to announce the creation of the Mildred and Ralph Buchsbaum Prize for Excellence in Photomicrography, which will be awarded at the SICB/AMS annual meeting in Toronto January 4 – 8, 2003. The new program has been established as a memorial to Ralph Buchsbaum, a pioneer in cell and tissue culture of invertebrates and vertebrates and a champion of photomicrography of cells and unicellular organisms, and to his wife, who co-authored many of his publications.

Membership in AMS is welcome, but not required. The award carries a prize of $75.00. In addition, the winning entry will be published in Invertebrate Biology and will be displayed on the AMS website. Information on submitting entries and on contributing to the Ralph and Mildred Buchsbaum Fund is posted on the AMS website www.amicros.org. If you have questions, please contact Bill Kier at billkier@bio.unc.edu.

We invite you to share some of your best photographs with those attending the meeting.

The Computerized Physiology Classroom: ADInstruments Presents the PowerLab Teaching System.

A workshop presented by: T. Bowen and J.P. Odell, ADInstruments North America (Sunday January 5th, 6:15 – 8:15 PM, Essex Room)

Join us for wine and cheese as we go over the basics of data acquisition and allow participants to gain hands-on experience with the PowerLab system and accompanying Chart software. Teaching experiments for both human and comparative physiology will be discussed and demonstrated, and group participation encouraged. In addition, we will demonstrate and discuss data analysis options available to instructors and students and explore methods of making multimedia lecture presentations.

Emerging Technologies
A workshop presented by Biacore Inc. (Monday January 6th, 8 am – Noon,Grand Ballroom West)

1. INTRODUCTION TO SPR
   Sally D. Dowling, Ph.D., Biacore
   Technology enabling label-free detection of molecular interactions on the surface of a biosensor chip. Basics of SPR as it relates to the key questions you seek to answer: Is there binding? How Much? How Strong? and How fast? (Real-time kinetics) will be introduced.
2. INSTRUMENT DEMONSTRATION, Biacore
   Highlights of instrument operation and capabilities with a Biacore 3000 instrument.
3. APPLICATIONS OF BIACORE FOR PROTEIN-PROTEIN INTERACTIONS
   Jimmy D. Page, Ph.D., Biacore
   Selected published applications to stimulate discussion and illustrate how Biacore data can complement your current techniques. Applications will target techniques useful for studying a variety of aspects of your protein-protein interactions, including affinity, kinetics and target identification.
4. GUEST SPEAKER
   Dr. Bruce T. Seet, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto
   “Analysis of protein-protein interactions using BIACORE biosensors”

   Surface plasmon resonance biosensors, such as BIACORE, have become an increasingly popular technology for characterizing protein-protein interactions. Data generated from these instruments yield important insights regarding binding kinetics, specificity and stoichiometry and can be applied towards identifying new ligands for orphan proteins. We have used BIACORE technology to characterize the interactions between poxvirus proteins and host immune molecules in order to understand the molecular basis of how viruses evade the host immune response. Examples that demonstrate the utility of BIACORE in characterizing macromolecular interactions will be described in the context of our studies on a set of poxvirus proteins that bind and inhibit the activity of immune signaling molecules involved in leukocyte migration.