Name of Meeting:
Meeting Dates:
Meeting Location:
Amount of funding requested:
$9,000
Other funding sources & amounts:
to be requested: Soc. Developmental Biology, $4,000; Wiley, $1,000; GRC, $18,000; NIH, $10,000
How would this program be different without AAA support?:
Anticipated value for AAA: Funds provided by AAA for the Neural Crest and Cranial Placodes
Gordon Research Conference will be used in the first and third years to support the registration and
housing for 6-8 junior faculty, post-doctoral researchers and PhD student attendees. Certificates that
include the AAA name and logo will be provided to the award winners along with information about
AAA and an invitation to join AAA. A slide communicating the sponsorship of AAA will be shown at
the beginning and end of the morning and evening podium sessions. Sponsorship of the travel awards
will provide high and broad visibility to acknowledge AAA’s involvement in the Neural Crest and
Cranial Placodes Gordon Research Conference and also highlight the aims, mission and benefits of the
AAA. It also will highlight the AAA’s journal, Developmental Dynamics.
To further encourage synergy between our group and AAA, we propose to use the second year of
funding to plan a “Neural Crest and Placodes” mini-meeting at the 2016 AAA meeting in San Diego.
We would do this in coordination with the AAA Program Committee and in particular the Program
Committee Chairs. A similarly themed mini-meeting was held in 2011 in Washington D.C., and it
proved to be very popular. The topic of “Neural Crest and Placodes” provides flexibility to cover many
different scientific areas including core anatomy, development and morphology, stem cell biology,
evolution, and disease, each of which appeals to the broad membership of AAA.
Our philosophy for the “Neural Crest and Placodes” mini-meeting at the 2016 AAA meeting would be
to invite internationally accomplished investigators for plenary presentations and a number of
nationally recognized faculty and early career stage speakers for individual symposium sessions. Some
of these speakers could be chosen from the presenters and award winners at the 2015 GRC. We would
also include in each session presenters to be selected from submitted abstracts.
Without the support of AAA, we would anticipate that fewer junior researchers will be able to attend,
and be exposed to the benefits of AAA membership. Junior scientists are more likely to join a society
that has sponsored key events in their career development, and to continue loyalty to that society as
their career matures. The support of AAA for the mini-symposium will bring GRC speakers to the
AAA meeting and provide exposure to the vibrancy of the organization.
Neural Crest and Cranial Placodes Gordon Research Conference
Conference Organizers:
Conference Purpose and Justification
Neural crest and cranial placode cells make extensive contributions to embryonic
structures. Acquisition of the neural crest and placodes were key events in the evolution of
the vertebrate head and cranial sensory organs. Defects in neural crest and placode
development disproportionally underlie human birth defects, hearing loss and the formation of
pediatric solid tumors. Thus, study of stem cells derived from them holds great promise for
regenerative medicine. Because neural crest cells are a highly migratory population of cells
during embryogenesis, understanding the regulation of their motility may also shed light on
the misregulated invasiveness of metastatic tumor cells. In the past decade, there has been
an explosive increase in interest in neural crest and placode cells as the gene regulatory
networks that control their development are uncovered. These cells provide experimentally
tractable systems for investigating a broad array of fundamental questions in cell,
developmental, evolutionary, and systems biology, and this fundamental knowledge is now
being applied to stem cell therapies, tissue regeneration and cancer biology.
The goal of the Neural Crest and Cranial Placodes Gordon Research Conference is to
accelerate the exchange of information about the development, evolution and clinical
consequences of dysregulation of these two important contributors to craniofacial structures
across different model systems, and to promote technological innovations and a systems
scale understanding of the mechanisms that govern the formation and subsequent
differentiation of the neural crest and cranial placodes. This conference will bring researchers
together to exchange ideas, form collaborations, and mentor young scientists studying in this
area of basic and biomedical research.
We have organized a preliminary program for the 2015 GRC that builds on the success of
the 2013 meeting. We intend to choose from the most exciting talks at the 2015 GRC
speakers to present in a mini-meeting at the 2016 AAA meeting that we will organize, with the
assistance of the AAA program committee. For the 2017 GRC, Sally Moody will serve as
Chair, and a co-Chair will be selected by the participants at the 2015 GRC.
Preliminary Program for 2015 GRC
Session Topic 1: Neural Crest and Placode Formation
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 2: Cell Lineage Determination
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 3: Morphogenesis and Migration
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 4: Congenital Malformations
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 5: Genomics and Proteomics
Leader Name(s): Richard Harland (UC Berkeley)
Speaker Names: Robert Kelsh (Univ. Bath); Tatjana Sauka-Spengler (Oxford Univ.)
Session Topic 6: Stem Cells and Tissue Regeneration
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 7: Focus on Disease: Cancers of the Neural Crest
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 8: Cell Plasticity
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
Session Topic 9: Evolutionary Perspectives
Leader Name(s): xx
Speaker Names: xx
In each session there will be 1-2 talks by junior researchers chosen from the abstracts. Each
day there will be a morning session, an afternoon poster session, and an evening session.
Each session is 3.5 hours in length to encourage for questions and discussion of each talk.
Selection of Speakers: The Speakers and Discussion Leaders for the 2015 GRC were
chosen from international leaders in the field as well as more junior scientists with particularly
ground-breaking results. In addition to the 21 invited speakers, 13 talks will be chosen from
abstracts: these slots will be held for junior scientists, women and minority speakers.
Expected Audience: We anticipate the audience to consist of advanced graduate students,
postdoctoral researchers and faculty at all levels who are interested in: the development and
evolution of neural crest and/or cranial sensory placodes; related birth defects; neural crest
related cancers; and stem cells and tissue regeneration. This optimally integrates basic and
clinical interests in one unified meeting. The 2013 meeting received a High-Performance
Rating from the GRC based on participant feedback, who rated the conference as “above
average” on all evaluation areas (science, discussion, management, atmosphere, suitability).
Budget: 2015 GRC: partial support for registration/food/housing for 6-8 junior speakers (in
2013 this cost was $960/person) = $3,000. (Preference will be given to AAA members)
2016 Symposium at the AAA annual meeting: travel for 6 speakers ($500 each) = $3,000.
2017 GRC: registration/food/housing for 6-8 junior speakers = $3,000.
Acknowledgement of AAA Support: Funding will be acknowledged in the GRC program
and website. Certificates that include the AAA name and logo will be provided to the travel
awardees along with information about AAA and an invitation to join AAA. A slide
communicating the sponsorship of AAA will be shown at the beginning and end of the
morning and evening podium sessions. All participants will be encouraged to join AAA by the
conference organizers, and the organizers will provide AAA with an electronic list of
participants. All talks will be appropriate for publication in Developmental Dynamics, which we
will encourage, and we propose to organize a Special Issue for DD.