Registration Now Available for Selected Lunches and Tours

The organizers of WCSJ2017 are pleased to announce the addition of several lunch programs and university-sponsored laboratory tours to the conference schedule. Registration for the newly added events is now open on a first come, first served basis. Register early for the best selection.

1) Choose your Campus

WCSJ2017 will move to the University of California campuses in San Francisco and Berkeley for the final day of sessions Sunday, October 29. During registration, attendees will choose a campus for the day. On each campus, you will have the chance to share a complimentary box lunch with the scientist of your choice in a small group.

2) Choose your Lunch

Advance registration is now available for Lunch with a Scientist.

• At UC San Francisco, you can: Meet a young schizophrenia researcher who developed the illness himself and hear first-hand how that experience changed his science. Discover the brain’s own GPS system, how artificial kidneys might finally free patients from dialysis, the role of tools like Google Earth in predicting malaria outbreaks, and how biologically driven 3D printing can build complex artificial tissues for research or create leather for the fashion industry that’s indistinguishable from the real thing. Learn how scientific detectives are figuring out what’s really in those “designer” street drugs and nutritional supplements. The UCSF Lunch with a Scientist offers 31 different options. UCSF will also sponsor a lunch at which you can meet scientists and physicians from its remarkable Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Review the Lunch with a Scientist @ UCSF list here and the Cancer Center lunch details here.

• At UC Berkeley, you can: Partake of the science of pain and itch, as well as the newest astronomical frontier, cosmic dawn. Participants can choose from other trendy topics: brain implants to treat mental illness; neuromarketing; supermassive black holes; how Native Americans used fire; the role of slums in seeding pandemics; bush meat and biodiversity; the science of happiness; and more. A total of 18 lunch options are available. Review the  Lunch with a Scientist @ UC Berkeley list here.  Other participants will take off for lunch and tours at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory nearby. (The LBNL program is currently waitlisted, but seats may become available later.) 

3) Choose your University Events

• While conference sessions are under way at UCSF, the university will also offer a selection of laboratory tours. Immediately after lunch, attendees may choose to visit the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes and Human Performance Center or explore the research facilities at Genentech Hall. Later in the afternoon, a second tour of Genentech Hall will be offered along with a tour of the Memory and Aging Center and Neuroscape Lab. Advance registration is required for UCSF tours. Select your preferences when you register for the conference online. Registration is not required for the UCSF/BASF Science Expo, which will be running throughout the afternoon.

• UC Berkeley is offering a selection of tours that attendees will sign up for onsite after arriving on campus. Immediately after lunch, attendees can choose among various options, including visits to two robotics labs in the College of Engineering and a walking tour of the campus’s oak groves to hear from psychologists about their ongoing studies of acorn hoarding in squirrels. Student-led walking tours of the UC Berkeley campus will be offered both in the early and late afternoon. Also available is an all-afternoon tour to the Richmond Field Station, where scientists are working on the latest in large-scale engineering, seismology and environmental research.

Additional Lunch Programs. Hosted luncheons will also be offered on Friday and Saturday, October 27 and 28. Registration is now open for these lunch programs:

• On Friday, October 27: “Preprints, open access, and the end of Ingelfinger: Issues at the nexus of publishing and science journalism today,” a panel and open discussion organized by eLife with additional sponsors. 
• On Saturday, October 28: “The power of alpha: New therapies for cancer patients?”, a research presentation on Targeted Alpha Therapy sponsored by Bayer.

To register for these and all WCSJ2017 events, be sure to review the online program details and then go to http://wcsj2017.org/register/.  When you select events, first choose your preferred campus and then select a lunch and other campus-specific options.

If you have already registered for WCSJ2017, log in now  to edit your registration and select your preferred lunches. If you have signed up to attend the program at a university campus on Saturday and do not make a selection for a specific Lunch with a Scientist before the close of registration, you will be added to an available space.