The advent of new tools for transgenics and genome manipulation has provided an opportunity to perform functional manipulations of non-model species. Multiple groups are now working to develop and optimize these tools. This meeting will provide an opportunity for the labs developing these tools for non-model organisms to compare notes and to identify bottlenecks in tool development and new opportunities for the future. Invited speakers have been chosen to represent a broad taxonomic spectrum of study organisms and biological problems. We expect the meeting to have approximately a 3:1 ratio of active scientists to PIs in order to optimize the transfer of information among those developing the tools.

Applicants: In lieu of an abstract submission, please answer each of the following questions (in 3 sentences or less) within the “abstract” field of the online application form:

1. What is your non-model organism and what are the reasons you chose to study it (e.g. a big insect like Manduca sexta, cool behavior like Peromyscus mice, etc.)
2. What are the big questions you are addressing?
3. What problems do you face in making the non-model organism tractable?
4. What solution(s) have you successfully built to making the non-model organism tractable?

Application deadline: November 7, 2018 (11:59 p.m. EST)

The first Fly Cell Atlas meeting was held in December 2017, in Leuven, Belgium. A collaborative, global effort with multidisciplinary expertise, the Fly Cell Atlas consortium brings together Drosophila researchers interested in single-cell genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenomics to build comprehensive cell atlases during various developmental stages and disease models. In this next meeting, we look forward to discussing ongoing efforts as well as new tools and methods for the comprehensive single-cell characterization of the fly model system.

Application deadline (extended!): November 18, 2018 (11:59 p.m. EST)

Organized by Kristin Branson, Jan Funke, ​Stephan Saalfeld, and Srini Turaga, this workshop is is intended as a "by the students, for the students" meeting. Aside from the organizers, participants will include only students and postdocs, with a diversity of expertise and backgrounds.

Color vision plays a central role in many aspects of cognition and behavior, from social signaling and foraging, to spatial navigation and circadian rhythms. Recent advances in genetic and neuroanatomical methods are powering rapid progress in describing the circuits processing color information, which in turn inform studies of how these circuits develop and evolve. For example, techniques exploiting CRISPR/Cas9 can now be used to understand how retinal mosaics form in exquisitely color-tuned butterflies and test their contribution to color behavior. Meanwhile, in the genetically accessible animals such as the mouse, zebrafish and fruit fly, genetic tools and connectomics allow color circuitry to be identified throughout the central brain, but we are only just beginning to characterize the natural color behavior of these animals. This is an exciting time to bring together leading scientists to share expertise gleaned from the full range of model systems and approaches, from humans to basal invertebrates, to fully harness the potential of these advances. Topics include, but are not restricted to, the analysis of natural scenes, circuitry for chromatic discriminations and behaviors and the evolution of color circuitry. The meeting will be organized to facilitate vigorous discussions across organisms and research themes.

Application deadline(extended!): December 7, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)

Rapid advances in CRISPR/Cas9 technology plus next-generation sequencing enable whole-organism cell lineage analysis with genetic barcodes; however, such effort is still in its infancy.  Continued innovations are needed in all aspects, from barcode generation to lineage tree modeling and validation.  Informative cell lineage analysis will further require a better characterization of cell types, as well as identifying these types in intact tissue.  This meeting will focus mainly on technical aspects of innovative cell lineage mapping (rather than cell/tissue physiology), with the goal of accelerating innovations for high-throughput dense reconstruction of cell lineages.

Application deadline (EXTENDED!): December 16, 2018 (11:59 p.m. EST)

A follow-up to the first chemical tools meeting in 2017, we will again bring together experts in the development of chemistry-based tools that help to unravel signaling networks within cells and tissues. The major themes will include: 1) design of analytical tools for cells and tissue networks, including imaging agents, 2) methods to perturb biological networks in cells and tissues, and 3) strategies to build artificial/model cellular networks for study. We will also include a special session of biologists and/or microscope builders discussing their biological system and its unsolved problems.

Application deadline (EXTENDED!): December 19, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)

A follow up to the first meeting in 2017, this conference will again be a platform for the convergence of the frontiers of engineering and biological application. This year, we will focus on imaging technologies applicable mainly on the cellular and molecular level. We will bring leading developers of imaging technologies together with experts in the field of life sciences to discuss emerging technologies, current challenges and future directions.  Presentations and discussions will address the current state of the art and recent progress on the topics of super-resolution microscopy, light sheet microscopy, correlative light-EM microscopy, probe and biosensor development, and data handling and analysis.

Application deadline: December 30, 2018 (11:59 p.m. ET)

Organized 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.

Organized by Luke Lavis (Janelia), Jennifer Prescher (UC Irvine) and Martin Schnermann (NCI/NIH), 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. 

Organized by Ilaria Testa, Kaspar Podgorski, Philipp Keller, and Luke Lavis this interactive workshop for graduate students and postdocs will explore the near future of optical microscopy in the biological sciences. Its collaborative format will bring together researchers from diverse backgrounds with a common interest in improved optical techniques for the biological sciences. We will discuss open challenges and strategies for addressing them, emerging imaging methods and modalities, and ways in which computational and closed-loop approaches can be used to study biology.

Viruses are critical reagents for many biological experiments. In model organisms, they complement the use of transgenics and enable otherwise-impossible functionalities, such as targeted retrograde tracing. In non-model systems, they are often the only option for genetic access to cell types. In humans, they represent by far the greatest hope for gene therapy. Although there are many viral reagents to choose from, nearly all are very small modifications of the naturally occurring serovars. As such, their properties are optimized for the virus’s lifecycle rather than for experimental purposes in the lab or medical uses in humans.

Combined protein & genetic engineering represents the best opportunity to: 1) optimize these critical reagents for purposes for which they are already suitable but sub-optimal, and 2) engineer entirely new functionality into them. This meeting will bring together world experts in the fields of structural biology, protein engineering, genetic engineering, neuroscience, non-model organisms, gene therapy and virology to assemble a first-in-class conference on cutting-edge strategies for viral engineering. This is the future for next-generation viral tools & gene therapy vectors, and Janelia is excited to lead the way.

Application deadline: May 24, 2019 (11:59 p.m. ET)

A follow up to the first meeting at Janelia in 2017, we will again bring together leading scientists working on emerging new concepts in cell biology that are important for neuron and neural circuit function. Presentations will cover topics such as emerging areas of cell biology, new imaging tools for examining the function of proteins at the subcellular level as well as cutting edge work by investigators working at the interface of cell and neuronal biology.

Application deadline: May 31, 2019 (11:59 p.m. ET)

Organized 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.

Organized by Ann Hermundstad, James Fitzgerald, Sandro Romani, Ran Darshan  and Carsen Stringer, this workshop is intended as a "by the students, for the students" meeting. Participants will include only students and postdocs doing theoretical neuroscience research.

Janelia’s first “Women in Computational Biology” conference will showcase extraordinary research being done by women in this traditionally male-dominated field. Although small in size (~60 people), the conference will be thematically broad, with presentations and discussions on the application of computer science, mathematics and physics to cellular and molecular biology, evolutionary biology, genomics, neuroscience and image analysis. A Program Committee of six field leaders have hand-selected the invited speakers for their particular sessions and will help the organizers shape the program. A full list of program chairs and invitees is included below.

The intimate nature of Janelia conferences offers an ideal forum for attendees to network and build collaborations. Participants in this unique and exciting meeting will include women working in computational biology, as well as those of any gender who are committed to advancing or promoting the accomplishments of women in computational biology.

While presenters will identify primarily as female, all genders and those who are non-binary are welcome to apply.

Application Deadline EXTENDED to June 28, 2019 (11:59 p.m. EST)

The genetic tractability and expansive circuit mapping toolkit of Drosophila provide an ideal model system for studying sleep and other complex behaviors. Fly sleep has been shown to follow a circadian pattern and display many of the fundamental features of mammalian sleep, including homeostatic control. Over the last decade, many cellular and molecular components controlling Drosophila sleep regulation and function have been described. This small conference will bring together experts in the field to discuss the latest advances toward a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of fly sleep. For perspective, we will also include special talks on sleep behavior in various other model systems.

Application deadline: June 28, 2019 (11:59 p.m. ET)