4th annual Toronto RNA Enthusiasts Day (TREnD)

July 30st, 2019 from 8:30am-6pm at the SickKids Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning (686 Bay St, Toronto, Ontario).

This promises to be another fantastic day of RNA that begins with a keynote address, given by Professor Tracy Johnson (UCLA, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute), followed by 12 trainee talks and an action packed poster session with 60+ posters! Lunch and light refreshments will be provided throughout the day. Your trainees will have opportunities to present their research, and there are multiple prizes for the best talks and posters.

The oral presentation deadline is Tuesday June 4th. Registration is open overall until July 17th for posters. Please encourage all of your lab’s RNA Enthusiasts to register and submit an abstract for an oral presentation. It’s a great opportunity for students and postdocs to practice presenting their work and receive feedback–at a low effort, low cost international conference! 🙂

Please note that there is a nominal registration fee to defray some of the costs of this event ($30CAD for trainees and $50CAD for PIs), and we hope that you would support your trainees’ attendance at the meeting by providing them with some lab funds for the registration cost. The website is: https://trendrna.com/, registration link here.

We encourage YOU to register too! TREnD will be provide a wide array of cool RNA science (CRISPR to piRNAs, splicing to the exosome and everything in between!) and will give you a chance to learn about the work your colleagues in the region are doing. There is ample time in the program for informal discussions, and we hope that this event will spur new collaborations. Furthermore, it means the world to our trainees to receive feedback from experts in the field, so please come and encourage and inspire our next generation of RNA biologists! 

Finally, this year we have also initiated an “RNArt” art contest. RNArt is an RNA biology-focused art contest open to all registrants of TREnD2019. Eligible entries range from immunofluorescence microscopy to artistic interpretations of data. The winning piece comes with a monetary prize and will ultimately be printed on the walls of MaRS on the 15th floor where TREnD is headquartered. For more details please check out RNArt on the TREnD website.  

Please spread the word about our event to your friends and colleagues! The more RNA Enthusiasts, the better!

We hope to see you there!

John Calarco and Julie Claycomb
TREnD co-mentors