Keypoint Newsletter- September 2021

Welcome to the Keypoint Newsletter, bringing you all the latest news & views from Keystone Symposia! 

Featuring conference season highlights, spotlights on innovation and more, this biannual publication showcases Keystone Symposia’s efforts-- past, present & future-- to catalyze collaborative partnerships and inspire innovation in science and medicine around the world.

Looking Back on 50 Years of Keystone Symposia-- A Historical Overview 

By Ralph A. Bradshaw

It is highly unlikely that any of the ~230 attendees at the California Membrane Conference that was held March 13-17, 1972, at Squaw Valley, California, anticipated that it was the seed that in the next 50 years would eventually produce nearly 1600 conferences on bioscience involving >350,000 participants.  As the 50^th anniversary of this landmark event approaches, one can but marvel at how a single meeting organized by one individual, C. Fred Fox, a professor of Microbiology in the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA, triggered such an explosive growth.... READ MORE

50 Forward!

By Deanna Haas

This upcoming year is a major milestone for Keystone Symposia.  In January 2022, we will kick off a year-long celebration in honor of our 50th anniversary. Our Fifty Forward campaign honors our past and ensures a future where Keystone Symposia will remain vital to the biomedical science community for generations to come... READ MORE

Announcing the 50th Anniversary Website

To commemorate our 50th anniversary, we will be revisiting the memorable moments that shaped Keystone Symposia’s story throughout the 2022 conference season. We will hear from field leaders who have been integral to the organization throughout the years, as they tell their tales of seminal moments that changed the course of science history.  We will look back on the evolution of science, and how novel discoveries blossomed into entirely new fields, while emerging fields bloomed into transformative medical advances.  Most importantly we will showcase the brilliant minds and vibrant personalities that led the way, year after year, as pillars of the Keystone Symposia community. We are proud to share this milestone with the community, as we look back on 50 years of memories and formative moments in science, and look forward to what the next 50 has in store.

Check out our new 50th Anniversary Website for more on Keystone Symposia’s history and upcoming plans for commemorating this landmark year during the coming 2022 meeting season!

https://50.keystonesymposia.org/

Envisioning the Future of Hybrid Meetings

By Thale Jarvis

The enforced hiatus from travel during the pandemic provided a valuable learning opportunity, prompting the life science community to share science in new and innovative ways; our 2020-21 eSymposia series facilitated extensive virtual interactions and enabled crucial scientific exchange during the pandemic.  We plan to leverage this experience to offer hybrid and On Demand meeting formats in 2022, creating a robust remote access system to democratize access and ensure maximum dissemination of cutting-edge science... READ MORE

Reimagining Mission-Essential Programs in a Virtual World

By Heather Gerhart

For Keystone Symposia, this past year has presented an opportunity to revisit our organizational priorities, and explore how to reimagine mission-essential programs in a virtual world... READ MORE

Partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Expand Global Access to Science and Opportunity

By Graycen Wheeler & Shannon Weiman

To address the great divide in scientific access and opportunity for those in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), Keystone Symposia has formed a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation... READ MORE

Spotlight on Innovation: 
Vaccinating Against Multiple Sclerosis with Dr. Francisco Quintana

By Shannon Weiman

One of the greatest challenges to treating neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative diseases is physically getting treatments past the blood brain barrier, and into the CNS itself. Dr. Francisco Quintana of Harvard Medical School and The Broad Institute has devised a clever solution to this perplexing problem... READ MORE

Collaborative Content

The Scientist’s LabTalk Podcast Highlights eSymposia Stars

By Shannon Weiman

This year Keystone Symposia has teamed up with The Scientist’s LabTalk Podcast to feature eSymposia’s most innovative speakers and their pioneering work to drive research and medicine in new directions... READ MORE

Open-Access to Emerging Research

By Shannon Weiman

We are delighted to announce a new partnership with the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences to publish conference reports from select Keystone Symposia meetings!  ... READ MORE

Exploring New Frontiers in Science Policy, AI and more

By Shannon Weiman

With aligned missions dedicated to furthering the impact of science for the benefit of society, we have partnered with Frontiers Journals, a leading open access publisher and open science platform, on various projects this year.... READ MORE

Keystone Symposia in the Media

Keystone Symposia made waves in the media this year, leading the field in developing a virtual meeting format designed to not only convey the latest scientific breakthroughs, but equally important, to engage audiences from around the world with each other during this unprecedented period of isolation... READ MORE

Upcoming eSymposia