Conference: Broadening Participation and Supporting Early-Career Scientists at the International Polyploidy Conference, May 9-12, 2023 in Palm Coast (FL)

Polyploidy (whole-genome duplication; WGD), the possession of three or more complete sets of chromosomes, characterizes the genomes of most eukaryotes. WGD is central to the study of genetics, evolution, ecology, as well as agriculture and medicine. Nearly all agricultural crops are polyploid, as are many human organs (e.g., the liver, heart, and placenta), and at least one third of all cancers arise from WGD. Despite the importance of WGD, our understanding of this critically important speciation mechanism and source of raw material for genomic and phenotypic evolution is both limited and disjointed. The International Polyploidy Conference entitled “Polyploidy Across the Tree of Life”, to be held May 9-12, 2023 (Palm Coast, FL) brings together researchers across diverse fields—cell biology, physiology, evolution, ecology, genomics, agriculture, and cancer—to discuss and identify commonalities that derive from shared polyploid cellular processes across organismal diversity, levels of biological organization, and fields of inquiry. NSF funds will be used to help support early-career researchers to attend the conference and participate in various networking and training opportunities. A central goal of the Polyploidy Across the Tree of Life Conference is to help uncover both the commonalities and distinct roles of WGD across lineages of the Tree of Life and at diverse levels of biological organization, i.e., gene regulation, cell function, organ formation, organismal performance, ecological responses, and landscape-level species distribution. This conference, with representation across currently siloed research fields of WGD, will promote dialogue and interactions that will hopefully lead to new, synthetic understanding of polyploidy and provide a foundation for translational innovations – from biodiversity and biocomplexity to medicine and agriculture. To date, no single conference has explicitly addressed establishment, evolution, stress, development, and disease or considered polyploidy across major clades of life. Supporting the participation and training of early career investigators in the exploration of these topics in diverse organisms at the conference will hopefully stimulate new directions in polyploidy research by a new generation of scientists. In addition, the use of NSF funds will help support efforts to maximize diversity across multiple axes: scientific discipline, perspective, country, geography, gender, race, ethnicity, institution, and career stage. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.