Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

The goal of this grant is to provide partial funding (32%) for the organization of a student-oriented international research conference called the Gordon Research Seminar, which would discuss the recent advances in the field of Protein Processing, Trafficking and Secretion. Gordon Conferences are renowned for their high quality of science and for promoting a vigorous and engaging discussion of those presentations. More precisely, this Seminar is a 1.5 day conference, which take place just before its associated Gordon Research Conference and is entirely dedicated to trainees in this field - students and young researchers. It represents a unique international Conference for trainees to meet their peers and to present and discuss their latest discoveries in a low-stress but highly-focused forum. Breakthroughs in the field of peptide neurotransmitter processing and trafficking in cells and neurons are at the basis of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer disease or Parkinson diseases. This knowledge is even transposable to other disorders such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. This event is organized by and for trainees, and provides a useful initiation for trainees to engage in the larger GRC that follows immediately thereafter. As such, the GRS has proven to be an important driver of research enthusiasm and critical for the career initiation of these future researchers. This assembly fosters great community, synergy and spins-off of many functional collaborations. The financial support from CIHR would be catalytic: directed exclusively to help pay expenses for junior scientists (PhD students, postdocs) who would otherwise struggle to afford the costs.