About the author

Suzanne Kennedy

Suzanne is Director of R&D at Mo Bio Laboratories in California, and the author of their blog, The Culture Dish. She has a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Virginia Commonwealth University.

To enable tagging you will need to register on Bitesize Bio. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but it's free, only takes a few seconds, and it will enable you to view our seminars for free, ask questions from the professional community, and take part in the lively community of Bitesize Bio

Happy New Year!

Now that 2010 has begun, it’s a good time to start thinking about how you want to spend your travel money (or which meetings you want to nudge your PI about spending their travel money on for you). So to help you plan, here is a list of the bigger, more popular conferences in the life sciences in 2010.

These conferences all take place in the US so please feel free to send us your comments and let us know what additional conferences, large and small, you’ll be attending in the rest of the world that you think are providing the latest and greatest information for your field of work.

January

Plant and Animal Genome (PAG)
January 9^th-13^th
Town and Country Hotel, San Diego CA

LabAutomation 2009
January 23^rd-27^th
Palm Springs Convention Center
Palm Springs, CA

February

American Academy of Forensic Sciences 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting
February 22^nd-27^th, 2010
Washington State Convention & Trade Center
800 Convention Place
Seattle, WA 98101

Biophysical Society’s 54th Annual Meeting
February 20^th-24^th
San Francisco, CA

March

American College of Medical Genetics Annual Meeting
March 24^th-28^th
Albuquerque Convention Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico

April

American Association for Cancer Research 101^st Annual Meeting
April 17 ^th-21^st
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC

Experimental Bio 2010 Annual Meeting
April 24^th – 28^th
Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA

May

American Society of Microbiology, 110^th Annual Meeting
May 23^rd-27^th
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA

July

Plant Biology 2010
July 31^st- August 4^th
Montreal, CA

American Society of Virology 29th Annual Meeting
July 17^th-21^st
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

November

Society for Neuroscience 40th Annual Meeting
November 13^th -17^th
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA

American Society for Human Genetics 60th Annual Meeting
November 2^nd-6^th
Washington DC

Association for Molecular Pathology 2009 Annual Meeting
November 17^th -20^th
San Jose McEnery Convention Center
San Jose, CA

December

American Society for Cell Biology 50th Annual Meeting
December 11^th – 15^th
Philadelphia, PA

An alternative to these large diverse conferences are small focused meetings where you will be able to spend more time talking to your field experts and perhaps even share a meal with a PI whose work you admire.  A good place to look for small but focused conferences is the Cold Spring Harbor Labs, the Gordon Research Conferences, and the Keystone Research Conferences. Any of these will give you an intense learning experience.

No matter what you decide, just make sure to go to a conference if you can, even if it’s a local one. Nothing else can invigorate your mind and rejuvenate your passion for your work like a conference.

As well as telling us where you’ll be going in 2010, you could also let us know what was your favorite conference from 2009 and why.