BY KUAN TEH JEANG and DANIEL M. RABEN

Washington, D.C., is the place to be from April 9 to 13, 2011. During that time, you will be able to attend the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s annual meeting, held in conjunction with Experimental Biology 2011. The ASBMB meeting will offer a comprehensive and stimulating menu of cutting edge science, technology and new educational approaches.
 

BY NICK ZAGORSKI

ASBMB will host a special symposium titled “Scientific Credibility and the Politicization of Science,” sponsored by the society’s Public Affairs Advisory Committee, at the 2011 annual meeting, April 9–13, 2011, in Washington, D.C. The panel will feature Elizabeth H. Blackburn, James J. McCarthy and Michael Specter.

BY TAMARA L. HENDRICKSON AND SHANA O. KELLEY 

The sessions in the "Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery" 2011 annual meeting theme will cover chemical methods to tackle complex problems in biology, advances in the application of peptides as drugs and biological probes, high-throughput methods used in drug discovery and the application of chemical perspectives to the study of disease states. 

BY JOANN SWEASY AND MARLENE BELFORT  

The four sessions in the "DNA Replication, Recombination and Repair" 2011 annual meeting theme will focus on genomic instability, chromosome dynamics and gene therapy, processing of non-B form DNA by the cell and RNA as a mediator of genome plasticity. 

BY CARLA MATTOS AND PETER J. KENNELLY 

The "Education and Professional Development" annual meeting theme will cover dealing with frustrations at the bench, classroom management skills, mentoring students in the laboratory and the art of collaboration. There also will be a workshop on Process-oriented Guided Inquiry Learning.

BY VYTAS A. BANKAITIS AND TERESA M. DUNN 

At the ASBMB 2011 annual meeting, the "Lipid and Membrane Metabolism" theme will cover phosphoinositides, sphingolipids, phospholipases D and neutral lipids.

BY BARBARA E. CORKEY AND MARC PRENTKI 

The "Metabolism and Disease" meeting theme will cover mitochondrial dysfunction, information transmission, signal transduction and cancer. There also will be a special workshop, titled “New Tools to Study Mitochondrial Function.”

BY CRAIG E. CAMERON AND C. P. DAVID TU 

The "Molecular Mechanisms, Treatment, and Disparities of Obesity" annual meeting theme includes research on the biochemistry of addiction, insights into the treatment and prevention of obesity, and a look at the hormones and enzymes involved in obesity. 

BY IVAN DIKIC AND RAMANUJAN HEGDE

The sessions in the "Protein Synthesis and Degradation" theme will cover the ribosome and protein translation, membrane protein biosynthesis, protein folding and quality control and protein aggregation and autophagy. 

BY TINA M. HENKIN AND STUART MAXWELL 

At the 2011 annual meeting, the RNA thematic sessions will look at regulating bacterial gene expression, RNA editing and modification, RNA transport and localization and regulation by small RNAs. 

BY CHARLES E. SAMUEL AND KAREN L. O’MALLEY 

Sessions in the ASBMB annual meeting theme "Signal Transduction from the Plasma Membrane to the Nucleus" will look at janus kinase STAT transcription factors, intracellular signaling, innate immunity and circadian rhythms.

BY SQUIRE J. BOOKER AND L. MARIO AMZEL

The 2011 annual meeting theme "Structure, Mechanism and Regulation in Enzyme Catalysis" will look at metals and redox chemistry, sulfur chemistry and biological redox, processive enzymes and kinases, phosphatases, and phosphorus in biological reactions.

BY KAROLIN LUGER AND QIANG ZHOU  

The "Transcription/Chromatin" theme will contain sessions titled: "Structural Transitions in Chromatin - An Exploration of Mechanisms," "Alternative Chromatin Structures," "RNA Polymerase Pausing and Elongation" and "Transcriptional Regulation in Growth, Differentiation and Diseases."