President's Corner: Viva Las Vegas!

1/29/2026

The highlight of the year for the Society for Developmental Biology is the annual meeting that brings scientists together to learn about the latest discoveries in developmental biology. This year’s SDB annual meeting will be held on July 23-26 at the Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the first time the annual meeting has been held in the state of Nevada. Did you know that there are over 500 daily incoming flights to Las Vegas and prices are very reasonable? Las Vegas is also within reasonable driving distance of California, Utah, and Arizona.

We believe that we have organized a wonderful, well-balanced conference for you. We have a wonderful lineup of outstanding invited speakers, highlighting many areas of developmental biology research. The format of the conference will be familiar to those who have attended in the past but there are key differences.

In previous meetings there have been limited numbers of slots for talks selected from the abstracts. This year there will be 5 slots in each of the 9 concurrent sessions.

In addition, on the first day of the conference, there will be a Graduate Research Network (GRN) symposium similar in spirit to the Gordon Research Seminars, bringing together graduate students to present talks and interact prior to the main conference. There will be 12 slots for graduate student talks at the GRN symposium. The symposium starts the morning of July 23 so you will need to arrive in Las Vegas on July 22.

We will also have a session dedicated to undergraduate oral presentations. There will be 7 slots open for talks. As in previous years, we will have the Hilde Mangold Postdoctoral Symposium. Thus, there will be many more opportunities for trainees to speak at the Las Vegas meeting. Remember that you must be a current SDB member (2026 dues paid) to be considered for a short talk from a submitted abstract.

As usual the conference begins officially with the Presidential Symposium. We will also have 2 plenary sessions. One will focus on New Genetic Models and one will focus on Regeneration. There will also be a Special Interest Symposium: Understanding the Spectrum of Exposure Impacts on Development organized by the Engagement and Outreach Committee and the Professional Development and Education Committee.

Abstract submission opens in early February and closes April 15, if you would like to be considered for a talk. Late abstracts can still present posters, space permitting.

Did you know that if 5 or more members of the same lab register as a group on one invoice, all will receive a 10% discount on registration?! Also, we will be providing a beautiful developmental biology t-shirt to the first 250 registrants.

I hope to see you in Las Vegas that promises to be a memorable conference.

Richard Behringer, PhD
SDB President

Last Updated 01/29/2026