Come by ComBio

The ASBMB, ASPS and ANZSCDB are holding their joint annual conference from 25-29 September at the Cairns Convention Centre in North Queensland - and everyone’s invited.

Some of the world’s top speakers will present their exciting new findings in major plenary sessions and in a wide array of symposia. Being presented in nine streams, there is something matching everyone’s specific area of interest. The themes are:

• Developmental biology
• Gene expression and regulation
• Macromolecular structure and function
• Medical and translational research
• Plant function and environment
• Plant genetics and development
• Signalling
• Systems biology
• Tropical-related topics

This meeting will be the first time ComBio has been held in Cairns and it will again represent the joint annual conference for the Australian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), the Australian Society of Plant Scientists (ASPS) and The Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology (ANZSCDB).

The conference coincides climatically with the best time of the year to visit the north of Queensland. Conference attendees can augment their conference experience by visiting the nearby tropical rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef.

For more information about ComBio 2011 and to register to attend, visit www.asbmb.org.au/combio2011.

Confirmed plenary speakers as this time are:

• Nenad Ban, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
• Michael Breitenbach, Department of Cell Biology, University of Salzburg, Austria
• Hans Clevers, Hubrecht Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands
• Dave Drubin, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• Margaret Fuller, Stanford University, USA
• Julian Hibberd, University of Cambridge, UK
• Stephen Kowalczykowski, University of California, Davis, USA
• Hartmut Luecke, University of California, Irvine, USA
• Hiroshi Ohno, Riken, Japan
• Michael Parker, St Vincent’s Institute, Melbourne, Australia - Lemberg Medal Lecture
• Stuart Pitson, Institute of Medical & Veterinary Science, Adelaide, Australia - Merck Research Excellence Medal Lecture
• Howard Riezman, University of Geneva, Switzerland
• Lawren Sack, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
• Andrej Šali, University of California, San Francisco, USA
• Matt Scott, Stanford University, Palo Alto, USA
• Natalie Strynadka, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
• David Teplow, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
• Roger Tsien, University of California, San Diego, USA - Nobel Prize Chemistry 2008
• Carroll P Vance, United States Department of Agriculture, USA
• Susanne von Caemerer, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia - JG Wood Lecture