The 8th Annual CEPCEB Awards Ceremony and Noel Keen Lecture will be on Friday, October 15th from 2-4pm in the Genomics Building Auditorium (Rm 1102). The 2010 Noel T. Keen Lecturer will be Philip Benfey, a National Academy of Sciences member and Paul Kramer Professor and Chair of the Biology Department at Duke University. Dr. Benfey’s research focuses on plant developmental genetics and genomics, with a particular emphasis on the origin of cell identities and stem cell populations known as meristems. The title of his talk will be “Development rooted in interwoven networks.”

At the annual ceremony, CEPCEB will be presenting three awards:

• 2009/2010 CEPCEB Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow Research Award
• 2009/2010 CEPCEB Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award
• 2009/2010 Neil Campbell CEPCEB Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award

High-school students from regional and state science fair competitions who were awarded prizes by CEPCEB judges in 2010 will also be acknowledged.

This year’s event will be concatenated with the 6th annual ChemGen IGERT Retreat. After Dr. Benfey’s talk there will be a reception in the foyer of the Genomics Building lobby. Beginning at 5:30 PM, three ChemGen IGERT fellows will present their research accomplishments in the Genomics Auditorium. These fellows, a chemist, a biologist, and an informaticist, represent the breadth of research in the ChemGen IGERT program. The retreat will continue the next day with a full schedule of talks by IGERT fellows and other activities (9:30am until 6 PM). The retreat will end with a dinner in the Botanical Gardens for all IGERT fellows and participant PIs.