Mammary Gland Development and Breast Cancer from Systems Biology to Single Cell

The 2018 Gordon Conference on Mammary Gland Biology will uphold the longstanding and cherished tradition of presenting cutting-edge research on normal development and physiology of the mammary gland (including lactation biology), as well as on the molecular and cellular events that underlie breast cancer initiation, progression and treatment (including metastasis and the basic biological principles that are key to precision medicine). It will bring together junior and senior researchers with a wide variety of backgrounds and aims to foster interactions between attendees with different levels and areas of expertise. To this end, the 2018 meeting offers an exciting program of talks (covering the most recent advances in unraveling the dynamic complexity of the tissue in both development and disease) and interactive poster sessions, with plenty of time for in-depth discussions and the exchange of novel findings and ideas.

This year’s program especially aims to focus on scientific advances in molecular and single-cell biology, while at the same time taking into account the physiological function and systems level interactions of the tissue. Speakers and poster presenters are asked to include as much unpublished work as possible and we encourage applications reporting novel unexpected findings, or unconventional mechanisms, models and approaches.

Attendees will have ample opportunity for social interactions with other members of the community, young and old. We also encourage everybody, but in particular the attending graduate students and postdocs, to take advantage of the informal career development sessions, including “meet the expert” lunch sessions and a dedicated afternoon session focusing on issues faced by female scientists at various stages of their career (the GRC “power hour”). The Mammary Gland Biology GRC will be preceded by a Mammary Gland Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) in which graduate students and post-doctoral fellows present their work in a forum prior to the arrival of their mentors. Graduate students and postdocs are encouraged to apply to both meetings.