Signal Transduction: Receptors, Mediators and Genes 2012 Meeting

The 16^th STS Meeting 2012: Signal Transduction - Receptors, Mediators and Genes will be held at the Leonardo Hotel Weimar from Monday, November 5th to Wednesday, November 7th, 2012.

The on-site meeting registration opens on Monday, November 5 at 10 a.m. The scientific program starts at 1 p.m. A preliminary time schedule will be available when the overall program has been shaped.

The scientific program ends on Wednesday, November 7 at 8 p.m. after the final poster session. The meeting will officially end around 11 p.m. with the award ceremony as part of the closing dinner.

The lecture hall in the Leonardo Hotel in Weimar (previously: Hilton Weimar) is suitable for 250-300 participants. Due to the development of the society and potentially resulting space limitations, we strongly encourage all STS members and potential participants to register early. As usual, registration will be handled as first come first serve. Registration and abstract submission is possible online only.

With regard to lodging throughout the Meeting, we arranged for moderate accomodation rates at the Leonardo Hotel Weimar. Single rooms will be available to the conferees of the STS Meeting for 73,— EUR and double space rooms (which can be shared by two conferees) for 85,— EUR, both arrangements include the Leonardo breakfast buffet!

Hotel reservations at these reduced rates have to be made under the keyword 'STS' until October 3, 2012. Please note that the Hotel and third party contractors occasionally offer travel arrangements at even lower rates. Therefore, it might be worthwhile to check for special offers when making your reservation.

Following the recommendation at the general assembly 2011, the STS has reserved a total of 10 WLAN access codes for participants throughout the Meeting. Individual access codes will be also available at the Hotel on a daily basis.

For detailed information in German about traveling by plane or by car and the location of the Conference Venue please refer to the Leonardo Hotel Weimar website. For special inquiries about local peculiarities, you might also contact Karlheinz Friedrich.

Online registration for this year's meeting has been open since June.

Along with relatively low accommodation rates, the STS aims at making the Meeting attractive and affordable especially for young scientists.

As in recent years, the Meeting fees cover lunches, dinners and catering during coffee breaks and poster sessions throughout the Meeting. Moreover, the conference book and the traditional personalized STS coffee mug are also included in the registration fees. We would like to stress that the fees for STS members do not even cover the actual costs for individual participants.

Please note that registration at the indicated rates is only possible until September 15, 2012 is no longer possible. You can still register online using the late registration process: Register now!.

Individual day passes are only available on-site at the registration desk and are valid for ONE day only (i.e., Monday OR Tuesday OR Wednesday). Day passes have to be paid in cash (no credit card) at the registration desk. To reserve a day-pass in advance (in order to make sure that you get all meeting material), please contact Ralf Hass or the STS-Office in Hannover before September 15. Otherwise we cannot warrant the availability of printed abstract books for all day pass registrants.

Important note: A cancellation of a Meeting registration is possible until four weeks prior to the Meeting (i.e. until October 7). In case of cancellation, only a processing fee of EUR 50,— will be charged to cover costs for administration, program organization etc. The remainder of the registration fee will be refunded. After that date, a refund will not be possible.

Having registered for the Meeting, you are eligible to submit your contribution via the online submission platform. Please follow the guidelines as close as possible.

The STS is a non-profit organization that presently represents around 500 scientists. Over the past years, we have developed a fairly efficient and cost-saving routine for the Meeting organization.

Special Focus 2012
"Tumor Biology"

This year's special focus on "Tumor Biology" will be jointly organized by four Study Groups of the German Society for Cell Biology (chair: Ralf Hass, Hannover), the German Society for Immunology (Ottmar Janssen, Kiel) and the Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Klaudia Giehl, Giessen; Karlheinz Friedrich, Jena) and the EU-funded consortium SYBILLA "Systems biology of T-cell activation in health and disease" (chair: Wolfgang Schamel, Freiburg), SPP1468 "Osteoimmunology IMMUNOBONE" (Katharina Hieke-Kubatzky, Heidelberg) and the Pancreatic Cancer Consortium (Holger Kalthoff, Kiel).

Following the tremendous success of the Special Focus on immune cells in 2011, the STS and SYBILLA decided to continue this close collaboration to provide a comprehensive overview on different aspects of tumor biology. The special focus symposium and workshop include a number of invited lectures on mechanisms of tumor development and signal transduction in cancer, complemented by short talks selected from the submitted abstracts by the Special Focus Committee. Moreover, we will have an additional jointly organized workshop on Systems Biology of signaling pathways.

Workshop topics and representation might be subject to change depending on the number of submissions. The program committee might also allocate your contribution to a different workshop, in most cases considering your indicated preferences. Thus, while submitting your abstract, choose your workshop preferences carefully and also indicate the desired form of your presentation. Please also keep in mind that "Poster only" workshops are used as "pilot workshops" to judge the overall acceptance of a topic.

Each workshop will be started by an overview-like keynote talk that will be given by renowned invited speakers nominated by STS members and contributing consortia.

All presentations will be given as plenary overview lectures/short presentations in the main conference hall. Most sessions will be opened by an introductory overview keynote presentation of 25 minutes, plus 5 minutes of discussion. As in recent years, the STS program committee invited Overview-Speakers who significantly contributed to the development of specific areas of signal transduction research. Further speakers will be selected by the chair people of each session.

Due to time constraints, however, only a limited number of abstracts will be selected for oral presentations of 10 minutes plus 5 minutes of discussion. The oral presentations should be thematically related to the Workshop topics. They will be selected according to the author's indicated preferences by the Workshop chair people on the basis of scientific quality and consistency with the program.

Eight Sponsoring Companies of the STS meeting will have the opportunity for a plenary lecture at the STS meeting 2012. Thus, the Workshop sessions will include presentations of 15 minutes by sponsoring companies on innovative products for signal transduction research. These presentations will conclude each session to allow further discussions with the company's representatives during the following breaks. Please note that this offer is already "sold out" for this year.

All accepted poster contributions should be mounted on Monday, November 5, and will stay on display throughout the Meeting in an assigned poster area together with the sponsors' exhibition which is directly connected to the conference hall. This comfortable area will also be the major get-together site during the coffee (and beer) breaks. Poster viewing and discussion is scheduled for Monday through Wednesday starting at 6 pm.

In addition, all accepted posters may/should be presented to the plenum in one of the Poster Workshop as a "one-minute presentation" (one minute - one A4 transparency - no slide). Please prepare your informative A4 transparency and remember that you have 60 seconds to attract all participants to your poster.

Poster Size: The format for posters is DIN A0 (841×1189mm) or Arch E (36×48 inch) in portrait orientation (short side up).

Following the tremendous success in 2010 when the first STS/CCS Honorary Medal was awarded to Professor Anthony J Pawson, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and in 2011 with the second award to Professor Anthony Hunter, The Salk Institute, La Jolla, the STS in cooperation with "Cell Communication and Signaling" (CCS) will again award the STS/CCS Honorary Medal in 2012 to honor an renowned scientist for outstanding contributions to signal transduction research.

Several excellent candidates have been nominated by STS members, and the award committee has unanimously selected this year’s laureate. The award ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, November 7, 4 pm. On this occasion,

In 2012, the STS announces the 8^th STS-CCS-Science-Award.

This award has been presented for the first time in 2005 and was kindly sponsored for several years (2005-2007 and 2009) by Acris Antibodies GmbH. On the occasion of the 40th company anniversary in 2008, Biomol GmbH decided to donate the prize money to acknowledge the long-term fruitful liaison with the Signal Transduction Society. We are happy to announce that the 2012 prize money will once more be donated by Biomol GmbH.

The award will be granted to an outstanding presentation given by a Senior Postdoc or a Junior principal investigator at the STS-Meeting. The award jury consisting of the STS council and STS advisory board members will select appropriate candidates based on the submitted CVs and a brief description of scientific achievements. The candidates will have to present their work both as an oral and as a poster presentation to allow further discussion with members of the jury. The award winner is expected to timely submit the work of honor for publication in Cell Communication and Signaling (CCS). A waiver covering the costs of the publication will be reserved.

Please send applications (including CV, list of publication, STS meeting abstract) as one single PDF-file to the chairman of the award jury:

The definite deadline for applications is September 15, 2012. Please make sure that all information is available to the jury in time. Later applications will not be considered! Please note that the award ceremony will be part of the closing dinner on Wednesday, November 7.

The Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/Gesellschaft für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie e.V (GBM) announces for the sixth time the "GBM Innovation Award for Young Scientists" on the occasion of the STS Joint Meeting Signal Transduction - Receptors, Mediators and Genes 2012. This scientific award (EUR 500,–) will be granted to young scientists (diploma, master, MD or PhD student) who are developing or have developed novel and innovative methods, which might be attractive for all of us. The award ceremony will be part of the closing dinner on Wednesday, November 9. Awards can only be received personally.

The award jury consisting of the speakers of the GBM Study Groups "Biochemical Pharmacology and Toxicology" (Klaudia Giehl, Antje Banning) and "Receptors and Signal Transduction" (Christine Blattner, Karlheinz Friedrich) will select appropriate candidates.

If you feel your method is exciting and innovative, please do not hesitate to submit your abstract together with a brief comment from your supervisor including a statement for the reason for your application as a single PDF-file until September 15, 2012 to:

The STS General Assembly decided to continue to distribute a total amount of 2,500.- EUR as STS travel stipends. With this money, the Society keeps on supporting up to ten young STS members (diploma or doctoral students) by a travel grant of 250.— EUR each.

According to the stipend guidelines, it should be noted that the acceptance of this STS stipend requires a STS membership, which should be maintained for at least three more years. Applicants must currently be diploma- or doctoral-students and a letter of confirmation from the head of the department must be supplied with the application. Please also include a copy of your immatriculation certificate. Furthermore, applications must be accompanied a curriculum vitae, a description of the current project (no more than two pages) and the abstract to be presented at the Meeting as a single PDF-file. All young STS members who comply with these criteria are eligible to apply for a STS travel stipend!

The application deadline for STS-stipends expires on September 15, 2012. Successful applicants will be notified in October and personally awarded during the STS Meeting in Weimar. The award ceremony will be part of the General Assembly of the Society on Tuesday, November 6th. Awards will be made payable by cheque and must be cashed latest by December 31st of this year (expiration date of the cheques).

Please send your stipend application, including all the required information, to the chairwoman:

Poster presentations will again be particularly attractive:

First of all, there will be ample space for all posters to remain mounted throughout the conference in conjunction with the sponsor's exhibition.

Second, all posters may be introduced to the plenum in the famous "one minute - one transparency (no slide)" session.

Moreover, we have reserved ample for poster presentations and discussion.

Last not least, five poster prizes will be awarded (first prize: 250,— EUR, second prize: 200,— EUR, third prize: 150,— EUR, fourth prize: 100,— EUR and fifth prize: 50,— EUR).

Since it is the policy of the STS to particularly encourage and support young scientists, the council followed the former suggestion of the general assembly and decided that chair people and heads of departments or institutes are not eligible for a poster award. The candidates will be selected by the chairpeople of the different sessions. Be prepared to present your poster at least on the day of your one-minute presentation.

The award ceremony will be part of the closing dinner on Wednesday, November 9. Awards can only be received personally and will be made payable by cheque and must be cashed latest by December 31st of this year (expiration date of the cheque).

The industrial exhibition of sponsoring companies will take place in an approximately 400 square meter area together with the poster exhibition in order to concentrate and to facilitate interactions between the conference participants and the industry.

Sponsoring companies of this year’s STS meeting as well as companies that would like to support alternative activities such as organization of a dinner tutorial, sponsoring of scientific awards, banner commercials etc., are kindly requested to contact Frank Entschladen or Ralf Hass for further information.