The SDB Board of Directors elected the following recipients for the 2012 SDB Awards.  The presentations will take place at the Awards Lectures session at the SDB 71st Annual Meeting in Montreal, July 19-23, 2012.

- E.G. Conklin Medal:  Cliff Tabin, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

- Developmental Biology-SDB Lifetime Achievement Award:  Antonio Garcia-Bellido,  Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.

- Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize:  BioEYES, Co-Directors, Steve Farber and Jamie Shuda, Univ of  Pennsylvania, Carnegie Institution for Science and Univ of Notre Dame, USA.

SDB Collaborative Resources (CoRe) is SDB's online collection of images, movies, and diagrams for learning and teaching developmental biology.  You can now view objects submitted by your colleagues.  Help make CoRe a comprehensive developmental biology resource by submitting your visuals of development across many species.

Current and former NIH-funded investigators, contractors or trainees, and members of FASEB constituent societies are invited to submit images of their research to this new competition, in celebration of FASEB Centennial.  The top 10 submissions will be featured on the FASEB and NIH websites, the NIH campus, and at FASEB’s centennial celebration on the United States congressional complex.  To learn more about the competition please go to: www.faseb.org/bioart.   The submission deadline is March 2, 2012. 

NIGMS has established two new divisions that will administer existing Institute programs along with programs transferred to NIGMS from the former NIH National Center for Research Resources (NCRR).  A news release on the reorganization is at: http://www.nigms.nih.gov/News/Results/20120104.htm

Call for nominations for FASEB Excellence in Science Award – 2013. Nominations must be submitted on FASEB awards website by March 1, 2012.  For questions please contact: Linda Stricker (lstricker@faseb.org)

Eric Davidson of Caltech was presented on November 28, the 2011 International Prize for Biology by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for his contributions to deciphering gene regulatory networks.  Davidson has been a long-time SDB member and a recipient of 2007 Developmental Biology-SDB Lifetime Achievement Award. 

For more information:

 http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-biol/index.html

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/dec2011/nichd-07.htm

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~mirsky/ehdavidson.htm

NIH recently published a new high-school curriculum supplement titled “Evolution and Medicine.” A number of NIGMS staff members helped develop and review the material.  You can see an outline of the supplement and order a copy for your own use or to share with others at:  http://science-education.nih.gov/customers.nsf/HSEvolution.htm. 

For junior investigators wishing to “skip the post-doc” and immediately begin independent research; candidates must be within one year of receipt of terminal research degree or completion of clinical residency.  See the instructions in RFA-RM-11-007. Additional information, including Frequently Asked Questions about the Early Independence Award Program is available at: http://commonfund.nih.gov/earlyindependence/. Send questions to earlyindependence@mail.nih.gov.  The deadline for submitting Early Independence Award applications is January 30, 2012 with Letters of Intent due by December 30, 2011.

Two components of NSF’s Biology Directorate announce a significant change in proposal deadlines.  This change is very important to SDB members who are considering submitting NSF proposals in the fields of Developmental Biology, including the development of the nervous system; and on Evo/Devo research.  It is effective immediately and will affect everyone who was planning to submit a proposal during 2012.  We are no longer accepting full proposals in January.  Instead, we will accept pre-proposals on January 12, 2012 and invite a subset of those to submit full proposals on August 2, 2012.  Full proposals will not be accepted in January, and will be accepted in August by invitation only.  If you are writing, or considering writing, a new proposal or a revision for January 2012, it must be submitted as a pre-proposal.  If you were planning to submit a proposal during the summer of 2012, you must submit a pre-proposal in January 2012.  An exception is proposals for CAREER awards, which may be submitted on the due date listed in the CAREER solicitation.  They do not require pre-proposals.  The Special NSF Announcement is at: http://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=BIO.  The solicitation is at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11572/nsf11572.htm

SDB Board of Directors invites members to actively participate in the many programs the Society carries out.  Find one that fits your personality and membership status and volunteer!  We also welcome suggestions and comments.  Details in “SDB Call for Volunteers”