Conference: Meeting: Cnidofest: A workshop on cnidarian model organism biology, September 7-10, 2022, Davis, CA

The Cnidarian Model Systems Meeting (“Cnidofest 2022”) will take place September 7-10, 2022 at the University of California in Davis, California. This meeting will focus on cnidarians, a group of mostly marine animals that includes jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals, with a focus on cnidarians that are used as model organisms in the laboratory for molecular research to uncover the mechanisms underlying basic biological processes.

Cnidarian model systems are growing in popularity due to dramatic advances in technology that now allow for sophisticated mechanistic studies; these studies are expected to have significant impact on many areas of society, including human health. Traditionally, most scientists have studied only a handful of model organisms because importing tools to new animals was a significant barrier.

This has limited our understanding of biology because entire taxa remained severely understudied, including the cnidarians. However, due to significant and rapid advances in technology over the past 10-20-years, the number of laboratory model organisms has grown tremendously. This includes many emerging cnidarian models that will be featured at our meeting.

A growing number of laboratories are applying these new technologies to cnidarians and making rapid progress in many fields, including developmental biology, cell biology, neurobiology, immunology, evolutionary biology, and ecology. Our meeting will highlight new tools that have already been implemented, introduce attendees to cutting edge technologies that may be applied to their future research, and facilitate the exchange of information between cnidarian scientists.

This sharing of ideas will positively impact the advances we are able to make as a community. To ensure the healthy growth of our field, we will emphasize interactions between experienced scientists and trainees, with a focus on increasing diversity.

Cnidarians are excellent laboratory models for making fundamental biological discoveries in many scientific fields, including neurobiology, developmental biology, immunology, and ecology. New advances in technology are now allowing scientists to apply sophisticated technological approaches to this historically understudied group of animals. The advantages of cnidarians are many: 1) They have simple, well-understood body plans and interesting life cycles with high variability. 2) They hold an informative phylogenetic position as the clade that is sister to bilaterians; discoveries made in cnidarians are often reflective of deeply conserved processes. 3) Many life stages of cnidarians are transparent, making them amenable to live imaging. 4) Some cnidarians are models for studying self/non-self recognition and others are used to study intracellular symbioses, such as those found in reef-building corals. 5) Many cnidarians are great models for studying regeneration, stem cells, and aging.

Our meeting will emphasize new technological approaches that will greatly enhance cnidarian research. Three technology speakers will present seminars on emerging technologies 1) CryoEM, 2) single cell multiomics, and 3) live imaging. In addition, we will choose abstracts that emphasize the development of new technologies, including science supported by NSF Enabling Discovery through GEnomics (EDGE) awards.

Interactions will be fostered among participants through a schedule that includes oral presentation sessions, lightning talks, poster presentations, and free time to encourage informal discussion over breaks and meals, which are all done as one group. The goal is to exchange ideas for advancing technology in cnidarians, as well as to foster growth in the community through trainee support.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.