The Biophysical Society’s Annual Meeting is an exciting, stimulating, and scientifically diverse forum for scientists at all career levels to meet, inform, and learn from their colleagues — and importantly — to discover new and emerging fields in biophysics. There are poster sessions, platform talks, symposia, and workshops to attend — with some running concurrently. Because there is so much going on, the Annual Meeting can be overwhelming if one is not prepared! Here is a summary of the major meeting events to help you in your planning. Also included is information about how the topics and speakers are selected.
Poster sessions are the beating-heart of the meeting. These highly interactive sessions provide opportunities for all attendees, from the newest trainees to well-seasoned scientists, to present their work and get valuable one-on-one feedback. Attendees can ask probing questions about the unpublished work being presented and about recently published studies that relate to the poster. Poster sessions are a fantastic opportunity to meet new investigators, chat-up scientific heroes, and catch-up with old friends. Importantly, PIs and trainees also can explore potential mentorship opportunities. Posters are grouped together based on topics of interest. These groupings are determined by historic trends of submitted abstracts and evolve over time via input from the Society’s Program Committee. There are more than 700 posters presented each day — so be prepared!
Platform talks are opportunities for trainees and established scientists to give short oral presentations of highly significant and novel work. Platform talks are not meant to be comprehensive reviews of the field, but rather are highly focused, short research presentations that are directed to those that work in the field. These presentations are given by both trainees and established investigators to audiences that range in numbers of 100 to 500. Abstracts from attendees who have requested to give a talk are distributed to Council and Program Committee members with appropriate expertise, and the committee members make recommendations regarding appropriateness for oral presentation based on scientific impact. Efforts are taken to ensure the speakers within each platform session reflect the diversity of the Society membership. If a research area receives very few abstract submissions, it is not eligible for its own platform session. In these cases, the Program Committee works to combine related abstract categories to create a platform session that can accommodate these oral presentations. You might be surprised to learn that approximately 30 percent of submitted abstracts are selected for an oral presentation.
Symposia provide an in-depth exploration of an exciting topic of interest to attendees. Symposia talks are given by recognized leaders in their field who are given time to provide sufficient background to allow non-specialists to better understand their exciting research. Symposia are where meeting attendees can learn and be inspired by a field outside of their own. Many symposia topics are proposed by the Society membership in response to the “Call for Topics” email sent in August. As a general guideline, 70–80 percent of the symposia are directly related to the research interests of the members as determined from the number of abstract submissions in past years. The remaining 20–30 percent represent emerging topics or areas not usually represented at the Annual Meeting.
Workshops are where members learn about new tools and technologies that can transform their research. Workshops differ from symposia in that they are technique oriented, but are similar in that they are given by recognized leaders to an audience of non-specialists. Workshops cover emerging experimental and computational methods to provide participants with a working knowledge of the new technologies. Workshops are held on Tuesday evening to avoid overlap with the other scientific sessions — so if you are planning a lab reunion or happy hour — plan to be back at the convention center in time for the workshops at 7:30 PM.
Finally, don’t forget to look closely at the program book to learn about the many other events sponsored by the Society. These include programs focused on career development, funding opportunities, science policy, and more. Saturday Subgroup symposia are a meeting highlight open to all registered meeting attendees, and be sure to attend the reception and dance. You will meet new people, and maybe even see your advisor dance (but be careful, you can’t “un-see” some things). Have fun at the meeting!
—E. Michael Ostap