This unique meeting will bring together directors of imaging centers and program leaders of open access infrastructures. Our goal is to create a platform to explore the frontiers in imaging technologies, discuss common challenges, and strategize how the global imaging community can build a common network to tackle the era of “big data” as well as rapid technological advances in microscopy.
View Full DetailsOrganized by Loren Looger, Eric Schreiter and Luke Lavis, this workshop offers an exciting opportunity for graduate students and postdocs in the field to explore the latest advances, network with colleagues, discover potential next career steps, and generally have a good time.
View Full DetailsHow do distributed systems process and use information? How does one relate the coordinated, time-varying behavior of a system, whether it is a flock of animals, an ensemble of neurons, a network of genes, or a set of gates on a circuit board, to the underlying processing individual components, and collectives, may be performing? Answering these questions is a central challenge for diverse fields from biology to engineering. Human intuition for how the different components of a complex and strongly coupled system can work collectively to achieve a computational goal is limited, hindering our understanding of these processes and our ability to design systems that have such architectural and functional features.
View Full DetailsOrganized by Luke Lavis and Martin Schnermann, this workshop is targeted towards graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who are chemists (broadly defined) and interested in applying chemistry to solve problems in biology.
View Full DetailsCo-sponsored by NSF and Janelia, this meeting will bring together thought leaders to discuss how eukaryotes evolved and to explore new opportunities to accelerate understanding of their evolution. We will explore how the study of non-eukaryotic cells and basal eukaryotes can provide insight into the origins of eukaryotic cellular organization, organelles, and eukaryote-specific molecular pathways. Attendees will share key data emerging from genomics, proteomics, informatics, computational biology, structural biology and microscopy, and will highlight the most exciting opportunities for future research. We will discuss gaps in our knowledge and identify specific research areas where the development of new strategies, new methods and new tools would most rapidly propel our understanding of the origins and diversity of eukaryotic cellular processes. The program will include short (15 min) talks, poster sessions and breakout sessions to explore sub-topics in greater depth. Participants and organizers will produce a written summary of the opportunities and potential strategies to accelerate research on the evolution of eukaryotes.
View Full DetailsThere exists a rich, foundational, history of investigating neural mechanisms of sensorimotor transformation in the insect ventral nerve cord (VNC). Recently, new methods for genetic manipulation, optical imaging, and large-scale anatomical reconstruction of neural circuits have been applied to study insect nervous systems.
View Full DetailsNeural circuits large and small implement transfer functions that combine sensory inputs and prior experience to choose a behavioral response. By studying the most convenient animal models —from the giant axon of the squid and the lobster's stomatogastric circuits to Aplysia's synapses and C. elegans' circuits — neuroscientists have stumbled upon some of the operating principles of the nervous system, which were then found to apply broadly across phyla.
View Full DetailsDexterous behavior involves sensory processing, coordinate transformations, learning, planning, execution, and online corrections. The multitude of these underlying operations necessitates the involvement of diverse circuits within the brain. The neuronal basis for dexterous actions is being investigated in many model systems (including flies, rodents, monkeys, and humans) and with many experimental techniques (from single cell electrophysiology to whole brain imaging).
View Full DetailsThe generation of cellular resolution connectomes is rapidly advancing with recent examples of wiring diagrams from a variety of neural circuits and species. Connectomes have the promise to constrain existing models of neural circuit function as well as to provide a basis for new theoretical models.
View Full DetailsExplore Outstanding Phenomena in Animal Behavior
Jointly hosted by Janelia and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), this program will bring together 15-20 advanced PhD students with complementary expertise who are interested in working at the interface of mathematics and biology. Emphasis will be placed on linking behavior to neural dynamics and exploring the coupling between these processes and the natural sensory environment of the organism. The aim is to educate a new type of global scientist that will work collaboratively in tackling complex problems in cellular, circuit and behavioral biology by combining experimental and computational techniques with rigorous mathematics and physics.
In this fifth installment of the "Genetic Manipulation of Neuronal Activity" conference at Janelia, presentations will highlight advances in the development and use of new genetic reagents for the exogenous control of neural circuit activity, including naturally evolved light-gated ion channels and pumps, mutagenized temperature-sensitive synaptic transmission components, rationally designed photo-switches, "orthogonal" drug/receptor pairs and others. We will bring together leaders in the field to review progress in the design and use of current tools and, more importantly, to discuss the development of novel tools and their potential applications.
Application deadline: May 16, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)
View Full DetailsIn the sixth installment of this conference, we will showcase the development of cutting-edge tools and technology for imaging, from cells to intact animals. Sessions will cover the design and discovery of new fluorescent proteins (and intriguing alternatives), and their incorporation into sensors for signaling molecules and cellular states. Innovative imaging modalities making use of such reagents, as well as biological discoveries gleaned from such experiments, will also be presented. It is our hope that the meeting will present a clear picture of how far these tools have come in recent years, and what additional reagents and capabilities are required to continue the advance of the Age of Light.
Application deadline: May 23, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)
View Full DetailsChemical imaging probes remain an essential part of modern biological research. This conference will bring together the 'brightest' probe-builders and probe-users to discuss opportunities in the field and foster tighter collaborations between different disciplines.
Application deadline: May 30, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)
View Full DetailsOrganized by Hannah Haberkern, Misha Ahrens, Gowan Tervo, Alla Karpova, Josh Dudman and Vivek Jayaraman, this interactive workshop provides an exciting opportunity for graduate students and recent PhDs interested in the mechanistic basis of cognition to present their research to a diverse audience and discuss ideas for the future, while also discovering potential independent early-career options at Janelia.
View Full DetailsOrganized by Ann Hermundstad, James Fitzgerald, Sandro Romani and Herve Rouault, this workshop is intended as a "by the students, for the students" meeting. Participants will include only students and postdocs doing theoretical neuroscience research.
View Full DetailsThis will be the fifth in a series of Janelia-hosted meetings on this fascinating and highly conserved insect brain region. Much progress has been made in recent years towards understanding the anatomical structure, dynamics and behavioral involvement of central complex circuitry. We aim to facilitate ongoing discoveries by bringing together researchers utilizing a variety of experimental and theoretical approaches in a range of species, from insects to stomatopods. As with previous editions, this small conference will incorporate vertebrate researchers, roboticists, theorists and tool builders whose work is relevant to the study of the central complex. The meeting will feature a series of thematically organized sessions comprised mainly of short talks selected from submitted abstracts. Emphasis will be placed on featuring unpublished work from both junior and senior researchers.
Application deadline: June 6, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)
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