QB3-Berkeley is pleased to announce financial and administrative support to catalyze one-day, in-person symposia organized by graduate students and/or postdoctoral fellows. The program is designed to promote interactions and communication across disciplinary boundaries.

Cutting-edge bioscience research is carried out in a variety of departments across the Berkeley campus. The scale and diversity of the bioscience enterprise offer great advantages, but factors such as the size and geography of the campus, and divisional and departmental boundaries can be detrimental to synergistic, cross-disciplinary interactions. This program is intended to stimulate cross-disciplinary interactions at the grassroots level by providing funds for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who wish to organize a campus research conference that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Successful proposals will be submitted by co-organizers who are graduate students or postdoctoral fellows of UC Berkeley or Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), with at least one organizer from a QB3-Berkeley faculty lab. (There must be a minimum of two and maximum of four co-organizers.)

• Apply by March 4, 2024 for spring & summer 2024 events
• In-person symposia may be held in Stanley Hall between May 13 and August 19, 2024
• Awards will be announced by March 22, 2024

Visit the ASCB for general advice on organizing a local meeting and look at 2018 Bioscience Meetings and 2017 Bioscience Meetings for examples of previously funded symposia.

Guidelines for applying can be found below. It is anticipated that up to three applications will be selected for funding. Support will be given on the order of $1,500-$3,000. Organizers are encouraged to seek sources of additional funding and minimize costs, e.g. by considering speakers from local institutions such as UC Berkeley, Stanford, UCSF, and UC Davis. QB3-Berkeley will help with meeting room reservations and publicity.

Applications will be scored by the reviewers based on the following criteria:

• How well the topic of the meeting aligns with the mission of this program
• Uniqueness of the program relative to other conferences
• Inclusion of presenters from a diversity of disciplinary areas and career stages

An application must include the following information:

1. CVs (two-page maximum; format of your choice) of the students and/or postdoc co-organizers. There must be a minimum of two and maximum of four co-organizers. At least one organizer must be from a QB3-Berkeley faculty lab. 
2. The name of at least one faculty member who will act as a mentor for the proposed symposium.
3. A description of the meeting, which will include 1) the topic and goals of the meeting, 2) the intended audience, and 3) how the meeting will promote cross-disciplinary interactions (please limit your reply to 700 words or less).
4. An outline of the sessions (e.g., including number of student/postdoc talks, faculty talks, poster sessions, etc.). The meeting outline (up to 500 words) does not need to be in final form, but should provide enough information to understand the proposed event. Please address how you plan to ensure diversity among your selected speakers.
5. A proposed budget. Funds can cover refreshments except for alcohol (e.g., coffee, snacks, lunch, etc.), printing costs associated with the meeting, etc.
6. How you plan to acknowledge QB3-Berkeley funding for your meeting.

Submit completed applications via email as soon as they are ready, and no later than March 4, 2024 to: qb3admin@berkeley.edu

If sponsored, the meeting organizers are expected to do the following:

1. Attend an information session with details about support and logistics provided by QB3-Berkeley (to take place in early April)
2. Acknowledge QB3-Berkeley in any advertisements/flyers.
3. Write a brief, 300-word article within 30 days of the conclusion of the meeting for the QB3-Berkeley website with highlights of the meeting and provide photos (if available).
4. Provide itemized receipts of eligible expenses up to the amount awarded within 30 days of the conclusion of the meeting.
5. Fill out a program evaluation and feedback form that QB3-Berkeley will send.

Email qb3admin@berkeley.edu with any questions not answered on this page.

Photosynthesis, Carbon Fixation & The Environment | Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Oxygenic photosynthesis is the most important biological process in the history of Earth and the major process removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This symposium highlights the diverse photosynthesis research at UC Berkeley.

Endless Forms: Applying Novel Techniques In Non-Model Organisms |  Friday, June 29, 2018
Bringing together a local community of scientists, leveraging non-model organisms to ask unique questions in genomics, developmental, evolutionary biology & ecology, and beyond. This one-day meeting will promote cross-disciplinary interactions and provide a platform to discuss opportunities and technical challenges associated with applying cutting-edge techniques to lesser-studied organisms.

RNA Binding Proteins: The Life of An RNA | Tuesday, July 10, 2018
The life of an RNA, from transcription to degradation, is shaped and facilitated by an array of RNA-binding proteins. The Berkeley RNA-binding protein symposium will provide a platform for scientists from diverse departments on campus to present their state-of-the-art research on the structural and biological aspects of RNA-protein interactions.

Molecular Neuroscience | Friday, July 20, 2018
The Bay Area Molecular Neuroscience Meeting (BAMNM) will provide neuroscientists across sub-fields with a greater sense of community, to communicate our findings locally, share technical expertise, and foster collaborations. BAMNM includes a range of molecular neuroscientists: from molecular geneticists to structural biologists — anyone who studies neuroscience at the molecular level.

Biophysics of Nuclear Organization & Function | Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Understanding the biophysical properties of the nucleus and their functional implications is an exciting emerging field, the advancement of which is highly dependent on cross-disciplinary research and collaboration. This symposium brings together the Bay Area’s world-leading experts in biophysics, high-resolution imaging, computational modeling, and chromatin biology, in order to foster interdisciplinary interaction and facilitate new collaborations to advance the field.

Sculpted Light in the Bran | Friday, June 9, 2017

Sculpted Light in the Brain is a one-day conference and workshop aimed at fostering collaborations between neuroscientists, computer scientists, optics researchers, and other scientists who share the interest of developing better technology to observe and control neural activity in the awake, behaving brain.

Cellular Biophysics: Experiement Meets Theory | Saturday, June 10, 2017

Bringing together the cell biology, bioengineering and physics communities interested in the theoretical and experimental approaches to understanding cellular processes including: cellular membranes, the cytoskeleton, interactions between macromolecules in cells, and cell-cell and cell-substrate interactions.

Photosynthesis, Carbon Fixation, & the Environment
| Wednesday, June 14th, 2017

Oxygenic photosynthesis is the most important biological process in the history of Earth and the major process removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Join us to share your photosynthesis-related research and learn about the diverse photosynthesis research going on at Berkeley.

Bay Area Stress & Chaperone | Friday, June 23, 2017

Highlighting the most recent advances in stress and chaperone biology being explored at Berkeley and the Bay Area’s exceptional scientific community, the symposium will focus on current approaches as well as the latest experiments in stress and chaperone biology and to establish interdisciplinary collaborations.

Biophysics of Nuclear Organization & Function | Saturday, July 8, 2017

Understanding the biophysical properties of the nucleus is an exciting emerging field, the advancement of which is highly dependent on cross-disciplinary research. This one-day symposium is aimed at uniting Berkeley researchers with a shared interest in the role of biophysics in chromatin structure and function.