[Coral-List] First circular: Nonbilaterian Animal Model Organisms 2008

Gert Wörheide gert.woerheide at geo.uni-goettingen.de
Thu Feb 21 11:20:17 EST 2008


1. Circular

International symposium:

NONBILATERIAN ANIMAL MODEL ORGANISMS 2008

www.namo2008.de

October 17-20, Altes Schloss Dornburg/Saale, Jena, Germany


SYMPOSIUM RATIONALE: Study of the early evolution of multicellular  
animals (Metazoa) holds the key to some of the most important  
questions in Evolutionary Biology. In recent decades gene and genome  
data have strongly influenced our understanding about the phylogenetic  
relationship of the main metazoan clades and of their developmental  
biology, but other fields such as comparative morphology and  
physiology have also provided new insight into animal organization.

The use of model organisms has greatly contributed to our expanding  
knowledge of animal body plans, but the most widely used model  
organisms (Caenorhabditis, Drosophila, Danio, Xenopus, Mus and Gallus)  
are all representatives of bilaterian animals; there is a serious  
absence of models to use for understanding early metazoan evolution.  
The need for new widely available nonbilaterian model organisms has  
become pronounced, and while some models have been identified for  
Cnidaria, none exist for the Porifera.

The fully sponsored NAMO2008 symposium (final funding commitment  
pending) aims at catalyzing the process of choosing models for  
research on early evolution of metazoan organization. Recent progress  
but also the most important questions, tasks and the first steps that  
nonbilaterian animal research should take will be addressed. NAMO 2008  
will bring together scientists from various disciplines who are all  
specialized in different nonbilaterian animal groups and catalyze the  
process of establishing new nonbilaterian animal model organisms that  
can be studied in detail by every lab worldwide. We also aim at input  
from existing bilaterian model organism communities (e.g. the   
Caenorhabditis elegans community).

VENUE: The symposium venue, the 1000 year-old castle Altes Schloss  
Dornburg near Jena, will help to create an exclusive working  
environment for a unique, interdisciplinary team of experts. The  
castle provides the ideal retreat for exchange of ideas across  
disciplines and for fostering new alliances and pathways. Two days of  
combined presentations (invited perspectives) and workshops  
(discussion and exchange of ideas) will result in a synopsis of the  
current questions and proposed new directions for future research. In  
addition NAMO2008 will put together recommendations concerning the  
selection of new animal models as well as mechanisms to promote use of  
these experimental models world-wide.

PARTICIPANTS: The symposium will be open for a limited number of  
participants: 21 invited contributors and 45 assorted participants  
representing graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and senior  
scientists, who will be chosen by their excellence of research and  
expression of interest plus an abstract.

FURTHER INFORMATION: visit www.namo2008.de for further information and  
our symposium poster.

MAILING LIST: You will be able to register for our mailing list to  
make sure you will not miss the 2nd Circular and the opening of the  
registration.



COVERED PERSPECTIVES &  KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

ORIGIN OF MULTICELLULAR ANIMALS

Claus Nielsen, Denmark

THE NEED FOR NEW MODEL ORGANISMS

Ronald A. Jenner, Great Britain

PALEONTOLOGY OF NONBILATERIAN ANIMAL GROUPS

Andrew H. Knoll, USA

SELECTED TOPICS: PORIFERA

Maja Adamska, Norway

Noriko Funayama, Japan

April Hill, USA

Sally P. Leys, Canada

Michael Nickel, Germany

Gert Wörheide, Germany

SELECTED TOPICS: CNIDARIA & CTENOPHORA

Thomas Bosch, Germany

Allen G. Collins, USA

Mark Martindale, USA

Katja Seipel, Great Britain

Uli Technau, Austria

SELECTED TOPICS: PLACOZOA

Ana Signorovitch, USA

GENOMICS OF NON-BILATERIAN ANIMALS

Claire Larroux, Australia

John R. Finnerty, USA

Dennis Lavrov, USA

LESSONS FROM BILATERIAN MODEL ORGANISMS

David C. Hall, USA

Peter Ladurner, Austria

Sheldon McKay, USA


SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:

Maja Adamska, Sars Centre, Bergen, Norway

Dennis Lavrov, Iowa State University, Ames, USA

Sally Leys, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Michael Nickel, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany

Gert Wörheide, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany


LOCAL ORGANIZER:

Michael Nickel

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie

Erbertstr. 1

07743 Jena

Germany

Email contact via webpage form at www.namo2008.de

----
Gert Wörheide
Junior Professor for Molecular Geobiology
Courant Research Center Geobiology
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Goldschmidtstr.3
37077 Göttingen, Germany

phone: +49-(0)551-3914177
mobile: +49-(0)178-5372233
fax: +49-(0)551-397918
Skype: spongegert

gert.woerheide at geo.uni-goettingen.de

www.geobiology.eu
www.spongebarcoding.org
www.geobiologie.uni-goettingen.de

Project "Deep Down Under"
www.deepdownunder.de

Selected lab publications:
http://www.molgeobio.uni-goettingen.de/papers.php

Support the International Year of the Reef 2008!
www.iyor2008.de




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