Call for Posters

About the Summit

The University of Missouri System will host a Life Sciences Summit in Kansas City, Missouri, March 8-9, 2010, on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus, at the Stowers Institute and at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center.

Collaborations among educational, business and governmental sectors are key to successful scientific and economic progress for the future. Our collective efforts are moving us toward a new frontier of knowledge generation and application so that we are now poised for exploration of an even more promising future. At this Life Sciences Summit, we will celebrate our past successes while identifying the critical set of research and development collaborations to further drive these endeavors.

Successful partnering will create an engine for human-health improvement and related product development, building on our basic science (pre-clinical) expertise. Our goals are to both celebrate and advance our collaborative strengths within the life sciences across Missouri, Kansas and throughout the region and to capitalize on our comparative medicine strengths in order to further enhance the internationally recognized Animal Health Corridor.

Call for poster abstracts

We are soliciting abstracts for posters at the Summit in two key areas — those which highlight current successful partnerships, and posters that highlight promising areas for establishment of new collaborations. Here are some examples:

• Highlighting current successful collaborations such as:
  • Public-private partnerships and academic-corporate collaborations
  • Research collaborations that cross state lines or partnerships between two or more research organizations or academic institutions
  • Regional economic development partnerships
  • Examples of academic research successfully transitioning to existing life sciences industries or new start-up companies
• Highlighting areas ripe for new collaborations within the region such as:
• Identifying a research program at one institution that could benefit from partnering with another institution where complementary, but different expertise exists — providing a mutually beneficial experience that strengthens both institutions. For example, a poster might highlight a particular research program in comparative medicine program at MU where it could be advantageous to partner with KU for related clinical/drug trials — or vice versa.
• Posters that define the research strengths within schools and businesses for the purpose of generating ideas for possible collaborations. In other words, "this is what we have to offer" and "these are the areas of expertise we need in collaborators in order to further our efforts."

The summit seeks to provide a creative environment for real consideration of new ways of working together — so no need to be limited by the poster examples listed above. Summit organizers will be happy to consider any abstract designed to promote and generate interest in new collaborations, richer research results and strengthening our economy.

Abstract Submission

The deadline for abstract submission has passed. Selected posters will be notified via e-mail.