Conference: 2024 Centromere Biology GRC/GRS

The fifth Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and Seminar (GRS) on Centromere Biology will be held at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, ME, from July 24-August 2, 2024. This meeting will be attended by graduate students, postdocs, and junior and senior faculty researchers from broad-ranging disciplines to discuss and advance our understanding of all aspects of the structure and function of these “machines” that hold chromosomes together during cell division. Sessions will focus on understanding the evolution of centromeres, the mechanisms by which they hold chromosomes together in all plants and animals, and changes in the structure and dynamics of centromeres during cell division. The interactions of cell biologists, geneticists, biochemists, and biophysicists will increase understanding of these structures, and the senior scientists will engage with and train junior scientists. This engagement is a priority of the conference and especially the seminar, in talks and poster sessions to allow all participants to display their research. NSF support will be used to defray registration fee and/or travel costs to allow attendance of participants from early stages of their careers, and for members of groups under-represented in this field. The science presented at the Centromere Biology GRC and GRS will cover the biochemistry, cell biology, and evolution of centromeres in a wide variety of eukaryotic organisms, and will include talks on the interactions between DNA and proteins at centromeres, evolution of centromere sequences, and the different behaviors of centromeres during meiosis and in stem cells. The diversity of disciplines represented among invited speakers and discussion leaders - ranging from genetics, cell biology and biochemistry to biophysics, bioinformatics, and modeling - and abundant opportunities for interactions among all conference participants is expected to inspire innovative thinking and potentiate new perspectives and research directions in the field. In addition to advancing fundamental understanding of centromeres and the proteins that bind them, the science presented at this conference will enable greater understanding of cell division which could have applications in medicine and industry. Education of a wide range of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will increase the critical mass of future independent investigators studying chromosomes and cell division, fundamental to understanding cells. 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.