Better late than never I always say. Anyway, now that we are over two weeks into April I am finally posting the conference schedule for Nature Methods editors. Nathan (our technology feature editor) is already at AACR in Denver and Natalie (one of our Associate Editors) is on her way to the Keystone meeting in British Columbia.

American Association for Cancer Research (Denver, CO) April 18-April 22

AACR is celebrating their centennial and Nathan Blow, who edits the Technology Features, is already there. We have only published a few papers targeted directly to cancer researchers but these investigators are heavy users of general techniques and technology. There will undoubtedly be many company reps there for Nathan to talk to about their new and upcoming products.

Keystone Symposia – Stem Cell Niche Interactions (Whistler, British Columbia) April 21-26

This is the second year Natalie de Souza is attending this conference. It turned out to be productive last time and hopefully this year will be as good or better. Competition for high quality papers in the stem cell arena is tough but our recent publication of a very nice iPS cell paper by Allan Bradley was a very good development.

Keystone Symposia – The Biology of RNA Silencing (Victoria, British Columbia) April 25-30

The trips to Canada continue with Nicole Rusk going to see what is new in the area of RNA silencing. We have always had a strong interest in this area as evidenced by our Focus on RNA interference published back in 2006. Now much of the community seems to be focussing their attention on naturally occurring small RNAs.

Information on the Nature Methods editors can be found here.

Editors like to attend scientific conferences to get the pulse of the community and find out what is new and exciting in different subject areas. I like to think that face-to-face interactions also help ensure that editors aren’t viewed as faceless cogs in an uncaring publishing machine. It is also a welcome change of scenery after staring at a computer screen for hours on end, day after day.

To alert our readers to upcoming conferences of methodological interest that a Nature Methods editor will be attending, we will begin posting monthly conference schedules on Methagora. We hope this information is helpful to you and look forward to meeting some of you at these meetings. Information on the Nature Methods editors can be found here.

Biophysical Society Annual Meeting (Boston, MA) Feb 28-Mar 4

No editor from Nature Methods has ever attended this meeting before (though not for lack of desire). But this year Associate Editor Natalie de Souza and Nathan Blow, who edits the Technology Features, will both be attending.

Pittcon 2009 (Chicago, IL) Mar 8-13

Nathan Blow will attend this conference whose technical program and exposition cover laboratory science technology over a wide array of scientific disciplines.

Systems Biology: Networks (Cold Spring Harbor, NY) Mar 18-22

It seems that we rarely miss the various network biology meetings anymore and they always have something interesting. Natalie de Souza is planning to attend.

Perspectives in Stem Cell Proteomics (Hinxton, UK) Mar 22-23

This meeting, devoted to the intersection of two interesting fields, will be attended by Associate Editor Allison Doerr.

ESF Ligand Binders Workshop (Alpbach, Austria) Mar 23-25

Our publisher, Veronique Kiermer, will be attending this meeting.

Computational Cell Biology (Cold Spring Harbor, NY) Mar 24-27

We have published some computational biology papers and are interested in pursuing this field further. Editor Dan Evanko is planning to attend.

In terms of longer term plans, I will be attending EBSA 2009 in Genoa Italy. The conference will be running from July 11 to 15 so I’m hoping the weather will be beautiful. Italy itself was certainly beautiful the one time I visited previously and I’m looking forward to seeing a different part of the country.

For those who don’t know, EBSA 2009 is the 7th Congress of the European Biophysical Societies’ Association (EBSA). It was formed in 1984 with the objectives to advance and disseminate knowledge of the principles, recent developments and applications of biophysics, and to foster the exchange of scientific information among biophysicists. EBSA 2009 provides special incentives for young investigators and the 7th Congress will celebrate 25 years of EBSA.