Regulating Centromere Function Through Structure

The Gordon Research Seminar on Centromere Biology is a unique forum for graduate students, post-docs, and other trainees with comparable levels of experience and education exchange new data and cutting edge ideas. This seminar provides a stimulating yet relaxed environment, ideal for fostering future collaborations, networking with colleagues, and conceiving new research directions. Seminar attendees will be able to present their work in an intimate and un-intimidating setting prior to the larger GRC. In addition, a panel discussion will provide an opportunity for junior investigators to address current challenges facing biomedical research and career development and discuss potential solutions.

This meeting focuses on the advice of Francis Crick - "If you want to understand function, study structure" – which applies as strongly to current centromere biology as it did to understanding DNA in the 1950s. The folding of centromeric chromatin to generate local and large-scale structures, and how this influences kinetochore formation and chromosome segregation, remains largely unknown. In addition, key components of centromeric structure continue to be discovered including novel proteins and centromere derived RNAs. The aim of this meeting is to present and highlight recent cellular and molecular advances that show how centromere components come together to build a structure that promotes chromosome segregation, and how disruptions in these components lead to aneuploidy and disease across various organisms.

Application Instructions

The seminar will feature approximately 10 talks and 2 poster sessions. All attendees are expected to actively participate in the GRS, either by giving an oral presentation or presenting a poster. Therefore, all applications must include an abstract.

The seminar chair will select speakers from abstracts submitted by April 24, 2022. Those applicants who are not chosen for talks and those who apply after the deadline to be considered for an oral presentation will be expected to present a poster. In order to participate, you must submit an application by the date indicated in the Application Information section above.

Program Format

Gordon Research Seminars are 2-day meetings which take place on the Saturday and Sunday just prior to the start of the associated GRC. The GRS opens with a 1-hour introductory session on Saturday afternoon, followed by a poster session, dinner and a 2-hour session in the evening. Sunday morning begins with breakfast and is followed by another 2-hour session, a second poster session, and lunch. A final 1-hour session takes place just after lunch, and the associated GRC begins later that evening.