Biological Methylation: Fundamental Mechanisms - Abstract: The purpose of this R13 submission is to request funds to support a limited number of trainees, individuals identifying as underrepresented minorities (URMs), junior investigator-invited speakers and those with family caring responsibilities to participate in the 2024 FASEB Science Research Conference on “The Biological Methylation: Fundamental Mechanisms in Health and Disease”. This will be the 15th FASEB SRC on Biological Methylation and will be held at the Sheraton Porto Hotel from 28th July-1st August 2024. The last FASEB meeting was held in Catania, Italy in 2022, where Dr. Davies and Dr. Ge were elected as co-chairs to work jointly with Prof . Van Rechem and Prof. Strahl who will be the two co-organizers for 2024. The 2024 conference builds upon the scientific excellence of previous meetings, bringing together a diverse group of cancer and developmental biologists, chemists and computational biologists, both clinicians and basic scientists, from academia and biotech. The venue and scientific program will foster interaction between participants with different expertise and career stages. Previous evaluations have ranked this conference highly for outstanding presentations, ample time for scientific interactions and discussions, collegial atmosphere fostering mentorship and collaboration, and for the high impact speakers, who remain for the entire duration of the conference. We are committed to increasing the number of abstracts selected from early career researchers/postdocs/trainees/URMs and will provide a platform for short presentations, poster sessions and sufficient free time to foster collaborations. The 2024 program covers all major areas of high interest in the field of biological methylation such as lysine and arginine methylation, DNA methylation and novel RNA methylations. These are particular relevant fields of research given the recent promising clinical studies on several small molecule inhibitors in cancer therapy. Other sessions will discuss the structure and function of RNA, DNA and protein methyltransferases/demethylases, and their therapeutic targeting. During organized sessions at lunch, attendees will have the opportunity to “Meet the Experts” and discuss “Career Development”. After the very successful 2022 “Women in science” workshop, we will use a similar format that will be expanded to include discussions about work/life balance. To summarize, the specific goals of this conference are to: 1) Provide a forum for the presentation of unpublished, cutting-edge research by investigators from diverse fields applicable to biological methylation, both from academia and pharma; 2) Provide an opportunity for scientists studying diverse aspects of the biochemistry, structure/function and disease relevance of methylation, to discuss recent research developments and to initiate collaborations; 3) Ensure development and integration of young investigators from diverse backgrounds and those traditionally under-represented in these fields into the broader research community.
