SEB’s Annual Conference is celebrated for creating the perfect composition of research, new discoveries and collaborative connections. Be creative and innovative by exchanging ideas and knowledge with masters of biology from all over the world.

2023 marks 100 years since our foundation in 1923 and the highlight of the year will be our Centenary Conference to be held from July 4th-7th in Edinburgh, the historic capital city of Scotland, where we will be celebrating the best that experimental biology has to offer and looking forward to the next 100 years!

Each year at our Annual Conference, we honour George Parker Bidder and Harold Woolhouse with two key Plenary Lectures. These lectures, along with the Cell Biology Plenary Lecture, are given by scientists prominent in their field and are nominated by the committees of their respective sections. 
 

**Welcome Letter from the old President**

The Society for Experimental Biology celebrates 100 years in 2023, and it gives me enormous pleasure to welcome you to Edinburgh for this Centenary meeting! 

We have a truly exciting scientific programme on offer over the next four days that showcases and reflects the diversity of the SEB. We have drawn loose inspiration in selecting these sessions from the relevant [United Nations Sustainable Development Goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals) - surely an agenda we all need to keep in increasing focus in the third decade of the 21st century. Please do take advantage of the breadth of the Society to discover some totally new science and hopefully draw inspiration from the interdisciplinary opportunities that our meetings can provide, as well as take advantage of all that is on offer in this wonderful city. I am a firm believer in the intellectual coherence, shared values and common purpose across all of biological sciences and the added value that can be gained by the cross-fertilisation of ideas that can arise. Often the hardest questions to answer may be asked by someone not immersed in the particular field and can open up new approaches and ways of thinking!

Always a particular highlight of the meeting are our Plenary Lectures and events, and in the spirit of mutual engagement and support, please do come along to our lectures and events, even if- indeed, especially if- they are not in your direct area of interest. Our speakers are international research leaders and chosen for both great science and their ability to engage diverse audiences. 

This Centenary Year we have a special Plenary Lecture by Professor Sir Paul Nurse, who has been invited to address the conference as the President’s Centenary Lecture. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for his discoveries on the fundamental mechanisms that control how cells divide, Paul is now Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He also plays a seminal role in science policy

The Woolhouse Lecture will be given by Dr Lisa Ainsworth, Research Leader of the USDA ARS Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit and Professor of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, whose research focuses on the photosynthetic responses of plants to climate change. The Bidder Lecture by Professor Elizabeth Brainerd, Robert P. Brown Professor of Biology at Brown University whose research interests are in the biomechanics and evolution of movement in vertebrate animals, and the Cell Section Plenary by Professor Wendy Bickmore, Director of the MRC Human Genetics Unit, at the University of Edinburgh whose current research explores how the non-coding genome regulates gene expression including how distant enhancers communicate with their target gene promoters.

President’s Medallists represent the new generation of upaq nd coming research leaders, generally within 10 years of PhD. This year the Plant Section President’s medallist is Dr Yasin Dagas (Gregor Mendel Institute, Vienna) whose research explores autophagy-mediated cellular quality control mechanisms in plants , the Animal Section medallist is Dr Cosima Porteus (University of Toronto Scarborough) who studies study the effects and physiological mechanisms of anthropogenic stressors on aquatic animals, and the Cell Section Medallist is Dr Yangnan Gu (University of California Berkeley) whose work emphasizes the discovery of novel nuclear membrane proteins and investigating their functional importance in different aspects of plant physiology and cell biology. Look out too for our Young Scientists Awards session!
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The richness of interdisciplinarity that characterises the SEB is seen in an increasing number of cross-Section sessions. This year the Animal Section (AS) is organizing 14 sessions on subjects as diverse as *Integrating mitochondrial and cellular bioenergetics to whole-animal fitness in a changing environment to From bacteria to whales: using size spectra to measure global change, plus a joint session with Plant Section (PS): Looking backwards and forwards after a decade of Conservation Physiology*, and joint with *Cell Section (CS): Thermoregulatory and metabolic adaptations in a changing world*. 

Plant Section is organizing ten sessions from *Plant biology for sustainability to Plant membrane- protein dynamics and interactions during responses to environmental change*. Cell Section is organizing *Big Data Biology, Local and higher order nuclear structural organization and dynamics*, and *Cell cycle control in non-mammalian systems.*

Of ever-increasing importance is the Society’s Outreach, Education and Diversity activities, and we are actively building our engagement with and support for staff whose primary University role is in teaching. OED are organizing seven exciting sessions, including *Teaching innovation and student engagement, Getting started in educational research*, and *Building for the future: fostering a diverse and inclusive biosciences community*. 

In addition to all of this, a cross-sectional sessions will look back and celebrate- and bring up to date- 100 years of SEB science! It all adds up to an amazing and stimulating week- celebrate with us how the Society has made a difference for the past 100 years and looks to an important future contribution to a sustainable world! For full details of everything, see the Conference website!

Of course we encourage questions, discussions and indeed challenge in our sessions, but please continue our tradition of mutual respect for all in our diverse Society, in which many young researchers may be delivering their first major conference presentation and we have a wide range of people from many different backgrounds and countries.

At this meeting, I am also handing over the reins to my successor as President, Professor Tracy Lawson of the University of Essex. I know she will be an outstanding President and I wish her all the best in leading the Society into our exciting second century! I would like to take this opportunity to extend my warm thanks to all the staff in the Society who have taken us through and out of the pandemic lockdowns, and in particular the Events team for organizing this and all our other meetings. 

**Prof Jim Murray SEB President**

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**Welcome Letter from the new President**

I am delighted to welcome you Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland and to the 100th SEB annual meeting, in which we are celebrating the success of the past 100 years of experimental biology and look forward to shaping the future of the next 100 years. We have an exciting scientific programme for the centenary meeting, with numerous sessions (27) across the three sections (Animal, Cell and plant) of our biological sciences remit. These include sessions relating to global topics high on the scientific agenda, such as: Senescence in a changing world, Experimental Paleobiology, Cell cycle control in non-mammalian systems; Improving crop nutrition, Cereal Biology in 4D and Unlocking medical plants. 

As part of our celebrations, we are delighted that Prof Sir Paul Nurse will be giving the President’s Centenary Lecture. We also have the traditional distinguished Plenary Award and lectures with internationally renowned winners of research awards. Professor Wendy Bickmore, Director of the MRC Human Genetics Unit, at the University of Edinburgh will give the Cell Plenary lecture on “The 3D genome - form and function: the power of the image”. The Bidder lecture will be presented by Professor Elizabeth Brainerd, Brown University on “XROMM yields new insights into musculoskeletal structure, function, and evolution” and Professor Lisa Ainsworth from the University of Illinois will deliver the Woolhouse lecture covering “Accelerating crop adaptation to atmospheric change”. We are also excited to award President’s Medals and hear from the following outstanding young scientists: Yangnan Gu (Cell); Yasin Dagdas (Plant); Cosima Porteus (Animal). 

As part of our Centenary meeting there will be a number of social events including the diversity lunch, awards dinner, a scientific and historical walking tour of Edinburgh, A Royal Society of Edinburgh evening event and to finish off the conference a “survivors raffle”, where there will be various opportunities to win free tickets to events taking place across the second half of the year. 

As part of our Centenary year there are number of SEB activities going on through-out the year, including a “birthday event” each month, a centenary mentoring scheme; careers and coffee webinars and “re-writing history” through our Wiki challenge. We have also launched a Leaders of the Future webinar to which everyone is invited, the SEB birthday card that allows colleagues to share memories of the SEB, alongside a history of the SEB that includes videos and articles. I strongly encourage you to visit the website to find out more information about events that are taking place and you can keep up to date with events via the Centenary calendar. 

This is the first annual meeting delivered without any pandemic limitations, so I hope you really enjoy this exciting meeting and take the opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues, as well as build new connections and networks from around the world. It is these meeting that truly provide us with our scientific family that remain with us throughout our scientific career. 

**Professor Tracy Lawson **

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**[SEB Code of Conduct, Anti-Harrassment and Bullying Policy](https://www.sebiology.org/who-we-are/seb-code-of-conduct.html)**
 
If you feel at any time you have been the victim of harassment or inappropriate behavior that contradicts our code of conduct, you may use the following form to report the incident. 

**[SEB Anti-Harassment Form](https://www.sebiology.org/events/sebundefinedantiundefinedharassmentundefinedform.html)**

To access the site please register [**here**](https://www.sebiology.org/events/seb-centenary-conference-2023/registration.html). 

SEB Centenary Conference 2023 

SEB’s Annual Conference is celebrated for creating the perfect composition of research, new discoveries and collaborative connections. Be creative and innovative by exchanging ideas and knowledge with masters of biology from all over the world. 