Abstract
The Phytochemical Society of North America will have its 50th anniversary meeting from December 10 through 15th, 2011, on the big island of Hawaii. The society has a long tradition in the study of plant biochemistry, chemistry, natural products (whether for commodity chemicals, food and fiber sources, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and other bioactive substances). The meeting, being a very special celebration, is anticipated to attract a very broad range of researchers drawn from worldwide locations. This is also reflected in the international composition of our organizing and scientific program committees. We are now finalizing speakers for the PSNA 50 conference which has a variety of scientific themes, including biofuels/bioengineering, transcriptome profiling, metabolism and metabolomics, and new characterization technologies/methodologies. A most important part of our PSNA 50 conference is to provide opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to present their research findings and exchange ideas with scientific colleagues. In this regard, the bulk of the funding in support of this conference is anticipated to come from sponsorships (industry, foundations, and so forth) and registrations which are currently underway. It is essential, however, that we strongly encourage the participation of both young graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at our historic meeting. In order to do this, we are requesting financial support from BES to help partially defray travel and registration costs to support 10 graduate students and 10 postdoctoral fellows in BES relevant areas of research. PSNA has a long history of supporting young scientists, including yearly graduate student and PDF competitions for best paper/poster awards. Support from BES would thus build on our previous successes, and enable a much broader and larger group of students/postdoctorals than at previous meetings.