The Third Midwest Membrane Trafficking and Signaling Symposium
01-23-2017
Writer(s): Purdue co-organizer Swetha Ramadesikan with invited speakers: (From L to R) Dr. Chunhua Zhang, Purdue; Dr. Nava Segev (UIC; Midwest keynote), Dr. R. Claudio Aguilar (Purdue), Dr. Arun Anantharam (University of Michigan), Dr. David Stone (UIC), Dr. Stacey Gilk (IU School of Medicine) and Dr. Mark von Zastrow (UCSF; Keynote address).
The Third Midwest Membrane Trafficking and Signaling Symposium was held at Purdue University on November 4th 2016. This was a student/post-doc organized initiative that was co-organized by Swetha Ramadesikan, a graduate student in the Aguilar Lab in the Dept. of Biological Sciences along with two post-docs from Ohio State University and IU School of Medicine. This one day symposium brought together scientists and students in the Midwest region with expertise in membrane biology, trafficking and signal transduction in health and disease and provided an opportunity to showcase student/post-doc research and a platform to foster collaborative efforts and networking amongst participants.
Held at Dean's Auditorium (Pfendler Hall), the symposium consisted of external keynote address by Dr. Mark von Zastrow (Professor, University of California, San Francisco) and Midwest keynote address by Dr. Nava Segev (Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago) and invited talks by scientists from UIC, University of Michigan, IU School of Medicine and our own Purdue investigators Dr. Claudio Aguilar (Dept. of Biological Sciences) and Dr. Chunhua Zhang (Dept. of Botany and Plant Pathology). There were also poster presentation sessions by students and post-docs and a career discussion panel that was very well received.
This one day event was supported by generous sponsorship by many Purdue organizations including Purdue University Centre for Basic and Applied Studies of Biological Membranes (PUBAMS), Dept. of Biological Sciences, Dept. of Botany, College of Science, Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience, Center for Molecular Agriculture (CMA) and the Purdue Graduate Student Government (PGSG) and an Early Career Meeting Grant awarded to Swetha Ramadesikan by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and support from ThermoFischer Scientific and Avanti Polar Lipids.