In the UBRP Office, January means one thing -- THE CONFERENCE -- in this case, the 16th Annual Conference to be held on Saturday, January 29. To date roughly 90 abstracts for posters have been submitted. Topics range from new treatments for brain tumors, to selective melanotropin drugs for treatment of obesity, to insights into the evolution of extra-pair mating in socially monogamous bird species, to the use of puppets to call children’s attention to caring for the environment. In short, there is something for everyone! As always, the Conference will be held in the Life Sciences South Building. Welcoming remarks will be at 9:00 am. Following that will be the first poster session and that will include posters by elementary school children who have been part of the Manduca Project.

At 11:30 am, following the second poster session, Dr. Pierre Baldi, Director, Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics at UC Irvine and Professor of Information and Computer Science and Biological Chemistry, will speak. The title of his talk is: “The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution” which is also the title of his most recent trade book. According to Baldi, “the boundary between the self and the world has begun to dissolve and ultimately may evaporate entirely.” His presentation promises to be thought provoking.

The third and final poster session will start at 11:50 am and will conclude just before the awards ceremony at 12:50 pm.

We welcome everyone to attend. The conference is free and refreshments will be available throughout the day.

Insuring The Future Of UBRP

UBRP currently relies on external grant support to fund participating students. Our goal is to build an endowment that would insure that UBRP would be available to future generations of students. If you would like to contribute to the UBRP endowment, please make your check payable to the University of Arizona Foundation (write UBRP Fund in the memo section of the check) and send it to the UBRP Office at Life Sciences South, room 348, P.O. Box 210106, the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0106. Contributions to UBRP are tax deductible.