Dear Colleague: We are pleased to bring the following important international symposium to your attention. Note that this event takes place in the same location and immediately before the 2007 AIBS Annual Meeting, "Evolutionary Biology and Human Health," May 14 - 15; see http://www.aibs.org/annual-meeting/annual_meeting_2007.html for details. (separate registration required).
Biological Sciences for the 21st Century: Meeting the Challenges of Sustainable Development in an Era of Global Change A symposium sponsored by the International Union of Biological Sciences as a component of its 29th General Assembly May 10-12, 2007 The Capital Hilton, Washington, DC This timely symposium will explore some of today's most exciting developments in biological sciences research and how these developments could be harnessed to address world-wide challenges of promoting sustainable development. Speakers at the symposium will include widely-regarded US and international experts. They will review current progress and remaining obstacles, share their insights, and bring perspectives from the front lines of both key biosciences developments and core sustainability challenges. The symposium thus hopes to engage a younger generation of researchers and a broad and dynamic coalition of both scientists and policy makers to move the biological sciences forward and address some of the pressing issues of the 21st century. The symposium will take place over 2 and 1/2 days. The first morning will feature overviews exploring five key research frontiers in the biological sciences- biocomplexity, informatics and computation, genomics, knowledge integration, and institutional capacity- and how they can contribute to sustainability solutions. Three subsequent half-day sessions will each focus on one major challenge of sustainable development: ecosystem services, food security and population health. A special evening session will be held on a fourth challenge in which the biological sciences seem destined to play an increasingly central role: sustainable energy. The final half day of the symposium will be devoted to bringing together leaders in science policy to discuss how the opportunities explored in previous sessions can be realized through practical actions in the public and private sectors. Abstracts are also being accepted for poster presentation at the symposium. Further details as well as registration, hotel information, and abstract submission are available at <http://www7.nationalacademies.org/IUBS>http://www7.nationalacademies.org/IUBS
