The ability to develop and execute adaptive foraging strategies in response to changing, complex environments is an essential tool of survival for many species, from insects to rodents to humans. Interest in the neural basis of foraging and its associated cognitive, sensory, and motor processes has exploded in recent years. As neuroscience moves towards an increasingly integrated understanding of brain function, studying ethologically relevant foraging behaviors offers an important opportunity for progress. However, gaining a mechanistic understanding of diverse foraging behaviors and their neural underpinnings requires collaboration across disciplines including systems neuroscience, cognitive science, ethology, ecology, and theory. This conference aims to foster intellectual exchange across these disciplines by bringing together some of the brightest minds excited about the neural basis of foraging to address three key questions:

1. Is it possible to establish mechanistic principles of foraging that are shared across species?
2. How can the study of foraging contribute to our understanding of cognitive or sensory processes in the brain?
3. What key questions and knowledge gaps should drive the future direction of foraging research?

Through a combination of talks, panel discussions, and poster presentations we hope to bridge diverse perspectives and work towards a roadmap for this emerging field.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Females and males of many species exhibit striking sexual dimorphisms in their behaviors due to sex-specific differences in the underlying neural circuitry. Fundamental studies in model organisms, such as Drosophila melanogaster, have shed light on the molecular and developmental mechanisms that give rise to sexual dimorphisms in the architecture and function of neural circuits. However, it has been previously difficult to decode the circuit logic of how male and female brains differ and the extent to which these dimorphisms are shared across species. Recent advances in quantitative behavioral analysis, genomics, functional imaging, and connectomic tools now have the potential to transform our understanding of sexually-dimorphic features of neural circuits.

This conference will bring together researchers studying sexual dimorphisms in neural architecture, molecular signaling, and behavior, working in diverse invertebrate and vertebrate models to offer a comparative approach. Through presentations and discussions, we aim to reveal how emerging tools can be applied to elucidate the neural basis for sexual dimorphic behaviors and develop a broader understanding of the conserved principles underlying sexually dimorphic circuits.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed.

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

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Launched in fall of 2022, Janelia's 4D Cellular Physiology (4DCP) research program focuses on how cells work in tissues and collectively give rise to an organism's physiological functions. The second iteration of this conference will bring together experts in cell biology, neuroscience, physiology, imaging, theory & computation, and tool building to share the latest advances and discuss future directions in understanding mechanisms of cellular and molecular coordination within and across organ systems. Presentations and discussions will cover topics such as spatial genomics & proteomics, brain-body interactions, metabolism, peripheral nervous system, cell signaling & dynamics, tissue morphogenesis and more.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all onsite participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

*The main meeting will begin at 6pm ET on March 10 and end by 8pm on March 12. Sessions on Wednesday, March 13 are closed*

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Organized by Jennifer Prescher (UC Irvine), Zev Gartner (UCSF), Luke Lavis (Janelia), this conference will once 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.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

As microscopy gains acceptance as an indispensable tool in life sciences, the equitable dissemination of this highly resource-intensive technology remains a challenge, particularly in resource-constrained scientific communities. While there are many individual solutions featuring cost-effective hardware, open-source software, and capacity-building and training programs, there is no concerted strategy to integrate these efforts into a coherent approach. 

This unique conference will explore the challenges, solutions, and opportunities in microscopy dissemination. It is not meant as a platform to discuss state-of-the-art imaging technologies, but rather aims to bring together developers of easy-to-disseminate hardware, software, and imaging probes, as well as representatives from global imaging organizations, microscopy initiatives, funders, industry partners, and open-access imaging centers. Joined by end-users of microscopy technologies from international and domestic under-served scientific communities, presentations and discussion will focus on how to integrate common goals into unified strategies to bring imaging technologies to a broader range of communities.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Computational imaging methods combine optics with computation to design imaging systems that are smaller, faster, cheaper, or able to image new things. Machine learning and differentiable optics simulators play a key role in this field, both for solving inverse problems and for modeling and designing optics. This conference will convene experts in optics (microscopy, photography, astronomy) and machine learning and optical modeling, with the goal of generating new synergies among them. We hope to advance the field of computational imaging by delineating and discussing common problems, solutions, and applications in each sub-field.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Extended phenotypes are the effects of genes outside of the organism. This conference will focus on the manipulations of one organism by another, such as the induction of novel behaviors by parasites. We will bring together researchers studying diverse topics, ranging from the microscopic, such as the manipulation of cells by viruses, to the macroscopic, including the induction by parasites of new organs on plants. The two major goals of the meeting are to seek common themes emerging from studies of disparate systems and to identify new tools and approaches that may be broadly useful in studying extended phenotypes.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the workshop and will also have an opportunity to extend their stay for continued discussion and collaborative time. 

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed.

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Hosted by Teng-Leong Chew and Rachel Lee, this 2-week bootcamp course is designed to demonstrate how biological queries and hypotheses steer experimental designs on various microscopy platforms and across length scales from molecules to small animals.

Participants will receive didactic instruction and hands-on experience with localization super-resolution microscopy, structured illumination microscopy, STED, pixel-reassignment methods for enhanced resolution, expansion microscopy, and various light sheet microscopy methods. Participatory lab sessions will be conducted with biological samples from single cells to various model organisms, on commercial instruments as well as pre-commercial instruments developed at Janelia, including iPALM, MOSAIC, and SiMView. The course will put a strong emphasis on image processing and quantitative analyses using open source software, as well as proper methods for handling big data.

Cellular polarity involves the asymmetric organization of different cellular components to enable specialized functions. An ancient feature of all eukaryotic cells, polarity is essential for the formation of tissues and organs. A broad range of challenges regarding cell polarity include basic mechanisms, regulation, and role in nutrient transport, as well as cellular signaling, division, surface expression patterns and motility. Inheritable and acquired polarity defects have been described in many human and animal diseases, including cancer. This conference will bring together researchers from various disciplines in the field of cell polarity, including biophysics, cell biology, physiology, theory, genetics, and pathobiology, to share their science and discuss unresolved questions. We aim for participants to come away with new ideas born from different perspectives and new collaborations to advance their research.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the meeting.

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 2pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed.

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Organized by Isabel Espinosa Medina, Anoj Ilanges, Yin Liu, Alex Chen, and Weiyu Chen, this workshop provides an exciting opportunity for graduate students, postdocs, and others in similar positions who are interested in the development and function of brain-body interactions to present their work to a diverse audience, work through challenges, discuss ideas for the future, and explore potential early-career options at Janelia.

Developmental programs within neural stem cells and their lineages program identity, connectivity, and function of individual neuron types, and we believe that understanding circuit development will reveal the organization of information flow in the nervous system that shapes behavior. Testing this hypothesis spans disciplines from developmental biology to behavioral neuroscience and requires diverse expertise, from molecular biology to imaging to mathematical modeling. Over the course of this meeting, we will address three broad challenges: 1) how lineage-derived information shapes circuits and connectivity patterns for innate and learned behaviors, 2) how endocrine and paracrine developmental signaling coordinate developmental transitions and sex differentiation events across the brain to produce juvenile and adult behaviors from the same genome, and 3) the development of unprecedented, evolutionarily relevant circuit engineering approaches and design of new computational modalities in living brains. We look forward to a uniquely transformative gathering of researchers working at the intersection of development and behavior to illuminate how developmental mechanisms shape complex behaviors.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the meeting.

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed.

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

To survive, animals must decide what and how much to eat. This requires integration of external information (sights, smells, tastes, textures) with internal bodily signals. Until recently, fields focused on the sensation, perception, and interpretation of external stimuli, and their ability to regulate behavior, have proceeded largely independently from those seeking to understand internal drivers of behavior. We are excited to convene experts in diverse areas of sensory biology related to eating (taste, olfaction, gut-brain signals, etc.) across various model systems with the aim of highlighting recent discoveries, bridging these fields, and fostering a multidisciplinary science of ingestion that integrates research on interoceptive and exterosensory signals.

Janelia will cover lodging and meals for all participants, and travel support is available to those in need (please indicate need in that portion of the application). Participants are expected to stay for the duration of the meeting.

The meeting will begin at 6pm ET on the first day and end by 1pm ET on the last.

Applications are closed.

Please note: Because Janelia conferences are intentionally small and selective, we may not be able to accommodate all applicants. We strive for as broad a representation across labs as possible and therefore may limit participation to one person per group. Preference is given to applicants who are active researchers in the field and intend to present their work as a poster or selected talk.

Organized by Ann Hermundstad, Sandro Romani, Tosif Ahamed and Michele Nardin, this workshop is intended as a "by the students, for the students" meeting. Participants will include only students and postdocs doing theoretical neuroscience research.