Conference: 2023 Gordon Research Conference and Seminar on Plant Lipids: Structure, Metabolism, and Function

This award supports registration and travel expenses for participants in the Gordon Research Conference and Seminar on Plant Lipids: Structure, Metabolism, and Function, held in Galveston, Texas, on January 29 - February 3, 2023. Lipids are essential for plant growth, development, and responses to environmental change and challenges. Because of this and their high energy value, lipids also serve as important renewable resources for human benefit.

Lipids are a critical source of food, feed, biofuel, and bioproducts. Plant biologists worldwide are working together to respond to humanity’s growing need for food and renewable fuels. To accomplish this, advances made at the molecular and cellular scales and advances in understanding mechanisms of resilience and environmental adaptation must be integrated with high-value product production.

The Gordon Research Conference and Seminar on Plant Lipids brings world-class plant lipid scientists together in the United States to make progress on this critical need. It is expected that all meeting participants will gain a greater understanding of the long-term challenges in both basic and applied plant lipid sciences and how participants’ diverse research programs collectively fit within a portfolio of potential scientific solutions that benefit humanity.

In addition, early-career scientists will leave with a clearer direction for their future careers, and new collaborations and improvement in scientist advocacy and diversity in the plant lipid field are expected outcomes.

It is the goal of the 2023 Gordon Research Conference and Seminar on Plant Lipids to bring together visionary leaders and early-career scientists to discuss the latest technological advances and research in biomechanics, metabolism, and energetics associated with plant lipids, and how these basic discoveries can be leveraged into new opportunities for human benefit. Conference speakers will be invited to contribute to a special journal issue on plant lipids, and a written report that highlights the current state of plant lipid research and identifies gaps and emerging opportunities will result from the award.

Additional objectives of the meetings are to broaden participation by (1) increasing participation by students, post-doctoral fellows, and members from underrepresented groups, in order to improve the resilience of the plant lipid research community; and (2) creating a dynamic, inclusive environment in which early-, mid-, and late-career scientists from industry, government, and academia of all ethnicities, nationalities, and genders feel welcomed to share their newest, unpublished research for the benefit of the field. All Seminar participants are early-career scientists, as are one-third of the Conference’s invited speakers, and all will benefit from the meetings’ scientific discussions and networking opportunities. Specific activities focused on career mentoring and diversity advocacy are also included.

This award is co-funded by the BIO-IOS-Physiological Mechanisms and Biomechanics program and the BIO-MCB-Cellular Dynamics and Function cluster.

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.