Scialog: Chemical Machinery of the Cell Initiative Continues with Virtual Meeting
More than 60 researchers with a wide variety of expertise in chemistry, biology, and related fields explored ideas for collaborative research at the third meeting of Scialog: Chemical Machinery of the Cell, which was held virtually on October 9, 2020.
Cosponsored by RCSA and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the initiative aims to develop interdisciplinary projects that advance understanding of chemical machinery and reactions in the intact, living cell.
Without the benefit of an in-person conference this year, the meeting was an opportunity for participants to continue the community building and conversations that lead to “free-wheeling, creative ideas that spark scientific progress,” said Senior Program Director Richard Wiener.
The final in-person conference of the initiative, complete with a final round of funding for collaborative research projects, is scheduled for Oct. 7 – 10, 2021, in Tucson, Ariz.
Participants, including 13 new Fellows from multiple disciplines and institutions, broke into small discussion groups to identify enigmatic areas of science that hold potential for discovery. They shared recent advances, current challenges, big questions that need answers, and discussed tools and techniques they think are needed. They updated each other on their respective research and expertise as a way to inspire ideas for projects they might work on together.
The meeting also provided RCSA the opportunity to learn more about what works and what is needed to keep a multi-year initiative moving virtually, and to hear what challenges the scientific community is facing.
“We need to know if we are supporting you effectively so we and our philanthropic partners can help you move your science forward,” said RCSA President & CEO Daniel Linzer.
Scialog is short for “science + dialog.” Scialog initiatives bring together early-career scientists from a variety of disciplines to focus their collective thinking on issues of global importance, awarding funding to promising multidisciplinary research projects.
Current Scialog initiatives also include: Microbiome, Neurobiology and Disease; Negative Emissions Science; and Signatures of Life in the Universe. The first meeting of NES will be held virtually in November. The first meetings of MND and SLU were postponed from spring 2020 to spring 2021.
In addition, RCSA will launch two new Scialog initiatives in 2021: Advancing BioImaging, and Mitigating Zoonotic Threats. Click here for details on all Scialog initiatives, including meeting dates.
