NSF Student Travel Grant for the 2025 International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA31)

This award supports student travel and registration expenses for the 31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA31), which will take place August 25-29, 2025 at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France. This support will give a new generation of molecular programming researchers the opportunity to present their work and interact with students from other institutions and senior researchers in the field. This highly interdisciplinary conference emphasizes topics that bridge computation, biology, and nanotechnology and attracts top researchers in the fields of computer science, mathematics, chemistry, molecular biology, and nanotechnology. The scope of topics for contributed talks include control of molecular folding and self-assembly of nano- and micro-structures; demonstration of biomolecular switches and circuits that process chemical information in vitro and in cells; molecular motors and molecular robots; studies of fault-tolerance and error correction in molecular self-assembly and molecular computation; synthetic biology and molecular evolution; DNA data storage; and software tools for analysis, simulation, and design of molecular structures and circuits. These topics have applications spanning engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and education. Conference organizers will support the travel of up to 25 students who are either US citizens or enrolled at US institutions to travel to DNA31. Students who plan to present their work at the conference, especially students from institutions that would otherwise be unable to afford conference attendance and trainees in molecular computing research who might not otherwise have the opportunity, will be prioritized for awards. Requests for student applications will be circulated in regular conference announcements, and a committee of conference organizers will make selections from the received applications. The awards will support registration, travel, and accommodations for students. The availability of this support will foster broader conference attendance and help advance human knowledge and develop new technologies. 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.