2002
NATIONAL DROSOPHILA BOARD MEETING
|
INTRODUCTIONS, APPROVAL
OF THE 2001 MINUTES |
2:00
- 2:10 |
|
MEETING FORMAT AND
ORGANIZATION: |
2:10
- 2:50 |
|
2002 PROGRAM COMMITTEE (Ken Burtis, Scott Hawley) |
2:10 - 2:30 |
|
2003 PROGRAM COMMITTEE (Dennis McK. Helmut
K.John A.) |
2:30 -
2:35 |
|
Meeting Format & Workshop
Discussion |
2:35 - 2:50 |
|
MEETING SITE
SELECTION: |
2:50
- 3:10 |
|
GSA
MEETING COORDINATOR (Marsha Ryan) |
2:50 - 3:00 |
|
DISCUSSION OF 2005 MEETING SITE |
3:00 -
3:10 |
|
FLY BOARD
FINANCES: |
3:10
- 3:40 |
|
TREASURER
(Steve Mount) |
3:10 -
3:20 |
|
BOARD
DISCUSSION OF FINANCES, SPONSORS |
3:20-
3:40 |
|
FLY BOARD
COMPOSITION |
3:40
- 3:50 |
|
ELECTION COMM
(Gary K.) AND
DISCUSSION |
3:40 -
3:50 |
|
BREAK/ SNACKS |
3:50
- 4:00 |
|
SANDLER
LECTURER COMMITTEE (Steve DiNardo) |
4:00 -
4:10 |
|
COMMUNITY
RESOURCES: |
4:10
- 5:15 |
|
STOCK
CENTER ADVISORY COM.
(Hugo
Bellen) |
4:10 -
4:15 |
|
BLOOMINGTON STOCK CNTR (Kevin Cook, Kathy
Matthews) |
4:15 -
4:30 |
|
STOCK CENTERS: PAST, ONGOING, AND NEW
(Michael A.) |
4:30 -
4:40 |
|
DIS
(Jim Thompson) |
4:40 -
4:50 |
|
FLYBASE
(Bill Gelbart) |
4:50-
5:00 |
|
D.
PSEUDOOBSCURA SEQUENCING (Hugo Bellen) |
5:00-510 |
|
COMMUNITY
RESOURCES COMMITTEE REPORT (Bill G.) |
5:10 -
5:25 |
|
|
|
OTHER BUSINESS
|
5:25
- 6:00 |
DRAFT REPORTS
REPORT OF THE 2002 PROGRAM
COMMITTEE (Ken Burtis, Scott Hawley, Chuck Langley)
Registration - Pre-registration for the meeting continues to be strong, as
detailed in the report from Marsha Ryan.
To date (as of 4/4/02), 1392 people (only 38 fewer than last year's
record high) have registered for the meeting; the breakdown is in Marsha's
report. An additional 100
participants are expected to register at the meeting itself. The strong
attendance continues even with the increased registration fees and challenging
air travel conditions this year.
Plenary
Speakers - Fourteen plenary
speakers were invited; this is three more than in previous years, due to the
addition of a special plenary session sponsored by the NIGMS on "Drosophila in the 21st Century: Current and Future Role of
Drosophila as a Model System for the Study of Human Disease and Normal
Biological Processes." The NIH is
covering the costs of audiovisual rental and refreshments for the break, so
there is no added expense to the Drosophila community. No traditional
meeting activity was eliminated by the addition of this extra plenary session,
although we did reduce by one the number of sessions at which poster presenters
were officially encouraged to stand next to their posters, in order to avoid
temporal overlaps with scheduled workshops. This should not, however, detract from attendance at the
poster sessions. Plenary speakers
were chosen for their excellent science and for their ability to communicate in
talks. We made efforts to cover a
broad range of current topic areas, to include investigators at different
stages in their careers, and to achieve gender and geographical balance to the
extent possible (8 male and 6 female this year). Ed Lewis was invited to be the keynote speaker for the
opening night, and will speak on "The Legacy of Calvin Bridges." An updated
List of Plenary Speakers is appended to this report that includes the year 2002
invited speakers.
Abstract
Submission- Abstracts were solicited under thirteen areas of primary
research interest (one more area than employed during the 2001
meeting). The list of 2001 topics is appended to the end of this
report, including the number of abstracts submitted in each area. In total, 1003 requests were received
for posters and platform talks ( versus 966 in 2001 and 802 in 2000).
There were 377 requests for slide presentations for 144
available slots, allowing accommodation of approximately 37% of the requests
(1% less than last year). The
number of speakers for each sub-topic was roughly in proportion to the number
of abstracts submitted in each sub-field, insofar as possible without combining
topical areas in a single platform session.
The choice of session topics
worked well, although there is definitely a higher chance of being chosen for a
platform presentation in some areas relative to others (see table below). The most popular submission topics were
Signal Transduction and Neurogenetics and Neural Development, but other subjects such as
Regulation of Gene Expression and Pattern Formation were not far behind. We were able to deal with the higher
numbers of submissions in the first two areas by offering two slide
presentation sessions for these topics as opposed to one session for the less
heavily enrolled subject areas.
There is an important issue that needs to be dealt with in coming years
regarding the overlap between platform sessions and workshops; for
example Immune System and
Apoptosis and Techniques are each represented by
small platform sessions as well as workshops that have become, in reality,
additional platform sessions.
Slide Sessions - We selected abstracts for slide
sessions from among the pool of abstracts requesting such consideration using
the primary criterion of scientific interest. However, we felt that other criteria were also of
importance.
As far as possible, we tried to avoid having more than one slide presentation
chosen from any one laboratory, although in some cases of large, highly
productive labs or labs working in multiple disciplines, selections from the
same group were appropriate. The
task of dealing with this issue would be simpler if abstract submissions had a
field indicating the identity of the principal investigator so that abstracts
could be sorted according to laboratory.
Workshops - There were 13 workshops organized. The workshops have evolved to the point
where they range from real workshops (e.g. Drosophila population genomics) with
very loose organization, to alternative community-selected Platform Sessions
(most of the "workshops", to an additional plenary session (the Techniques
Workshop). Once again, as noted by the previous organizers, issues related to
the workshops were the most time-consuming and vexing problems we
encountered.
A choice needs to be made: are the workshops meant to be workshops (informal groups of people meeting to discuss relevant issues), or are they meant to be another form of platform session, with the topic suggested by the community ? If the latter is the case, it would probably be more useful to get community input beforehand about desired areas for new platform sesssions, and then handle them in the same manner as the other platform sessions. It might then be useful to arrange for small rooms to be set aside for truly informal workshops, with reservations for space prioritized in some organized manner. Platform sessions should have abstracts and scheduled speakers; workshops should not.
Policies - In general,
the policies followed were similar to those for the 2001 meeting. Complimentary hotel rooms were reserved
-- as traditionally -- for GSA personnel, the major organizers (who have
traditionally been felt to deserve something for their efforts, and we agree!),
and foreign scientists (mostly from Russia) who could not afford the rooms.
Registration fees were waived for all participants who asked on the basis of
serious financial need. We
recommend that this policy be continued.
Future Considerations and
Organization of the Meeting -
A. Audiovisual needs are being met as in past
years, and there
are no apparent problems to be dealt with in this regard, other than a tendency
for some meeting participants to fail to read the information on the web site
regarding what is available.
B. Some efforts
were made to obtain corporate sponsorship of T-shirts this year, but in the
end, they were unsuccessful. The organizers were not inclined this year to take
the T-shirt production and sales upon themselves, so there will be no official
meeting T-shirt this year.
C. Interactions
with the GSA office and staff were excellent this year. Although the organizers
are new each year, the GSA is becoming more and more experienced with respect
to this meeting (thank you Marsha Ryan), and most issues were dealt with
efficiently and expediently. The organizers have begun accumulating a
compendium of advice (coordinated by Mariana Wolfner) to be passed along to
future organizers, which includes both formal and informal wisdom about issues
that need to be addressed. We will continue this tradition with respect to next
year's organizers.
It was possible to save some money
this year by doing things locally that would otherwise have to be done (at the
normal expense) by the GSA office. For example, a web site was created for last
minute changes and announcements that was developed by the program chair and
created and hosted at Davis, rather than on the official GSA website. Links to
this site were added by the GSA to the meeting web site. This approach could be
used in many ways, presuming that the organizers are comfortable with web site
creation.
As noted in last years report, it
would be useful for the organizers to have contact information for meeting
registrants (email and phone contact information). Unfortunately, not everyone
is on the Flybase People database, and last minute emergencies (cancellations,
etc.) could be handled more efficiently if the organizers had this information
at their fingertips.
In summary, everything went fairly
smoothly this year; attendance remains at record levels despite the events of
last year, and the meeting is projected to earn a substantial profit. We look forward to an enjoyable
meeting.
Acknowledgements: This report used the report of the 2001
organizing committee as a template, and includes where appropriate
some text from
that report.
I. Updated
Plenary Speaker list
Susan Abmayr
1995
Kathryn Anderson
1999
Deborah Andrew
1997
Chip Aquadro
1994
Spyros Artavanis
1994
Bruce Baker
1996
Bruce S. Baker
2002
Utpal Banerjee
1997
Amy Bejsovec
2000
Phil Beachy
1998
Hugo Bellen
1997
Celeste Berg
1994
Marianne Bienz
1996
Ethan Bier
2002
Seth Blair
1997
Nancy Bonini
2000
Juan Botas
1999
Andrea Brand
2001
Vivian Budnik
2000
Ross Cagan
1998
John Carlson
1999
John Carlson
2002
Sean Carroll
1995
Andrew G. Clark
2002
Tom Cline
2000
Claire Cronmiller
1995
Ilan Davis
2001
Rob Denell
1999
Michael Dickinson
1995
Chris Doe
1996
Ian Duncan
2001
Bruce Edgar
1997
Anne Ephrussi
2001
Mel B.Feany
2002
Martin Feder
1998
Janice Fischer
1998
Elizabeth R. Gavis
2002
Bill Gelbart
1994
Pam Geyer
1996
David Glover
2000
Kent Golic
2001
Iswar Hariharan
1998
Dan Hartl
2001
Scott Hawley
2001
Tom Hayes
1995
Ulrike Heberlein
1996
Ulrike Heberlein
1998
Martin Heisenberb
1998
Dave Hogness
1999
Joan Hooper
1995
Wayne Johnson
2000
Timothy Karr
2002
Thom Kaufman
2001
Rebecca Kellum
1999
Christian Klambt
1998
Thomas B. Kornberg
2002
Mitzi Kuroda
1997
Paul Lasko
1999
Cathy Laurie
1997
Ruth Lehmann
2002
Maria Leptin
1994
Bob Levis
1997
Haifan Lin
1995
Susan Lindquist
2000
John Lis
2001
Dennis McKearin
1996
Mike McKeown
1996
Jon Minden
1999
Denise Montell
2002
Roel Nusse
1997
David O'Brochta
1997
Terry Orr-Weaver
1996
Terry L. Orr-Weaver
2002
Mark Peifer
1997
Trudy MacKay
2000
Nipam Patel
2000
Norbert Perrimon
1999
Leslie Pick 1994
M. Ramaswami 2001
Pernille Rorth 1995
Gerry Rubin 1998
Gerry Rubin 2001
Hannele Ruohola-Baker 1999
Helen Salz 1994
Babis Savakis 1995
Paul Schedl 1998
Gerold Schubiger 1996
Matthew P. Scott
2002
John Sedat 2000
Amita Sehgal 1996
Allen Shearn 1994
Marla Sokolowski 1998
Ruth Steward 1996
Tin Tin Su
2002
Bill Sullivan 1996
John Sved 1997
John Tamkun 2000
Barbara Taylor 1996
Bill Theurkauf 1994
William Theurkauf 2002
Tim Tully 1995
Barbara Wakimoto
2001
Steve Wasserman 1996
Kristi Wharton 1994
Eric Wieschaus 1996
Ting Wu 1997
Tian Xu 1997
Susan Zusman
1998