About 100 active members of the SCBA DC Baltimore Chapter convened at the Johns Hopkins University Shady Grove Conference Center situated in Rockville, Maryland on a beautiful Saturday, March 18, 2017. The symposium was successfully co-organized by life members, Dr. Zhe Han of Children’s National Health System and Dr. Li Yang of National Cancer Institute who also is a president-elect of the SCBA DC Baltimore Chapter. This meeting was also co-sponsored by NIH-CSSA. With the help from many senior members of our local chapter, a strong scientific program that includes 4 scientific sessions, a poster session and a career development session was developed. Scientific topics include genetics, epigenetics and gene regulation, inflammation and immunity, cell and developmental biology, as well as disease model and drug screening. Fifteen senior investigators and professors from the Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, Children’s National Health system and NIH delivered faculty talks. At the career panel discussion, Drs. Ming Lei, Chief of the Cancer Training Branch of National Cancer Institute and Shou-Bai Chao, Chairman of the Centus Biotherapeutics provided insightful career advance to the trainees. This session was a highlight of this symposium. The organizer also received 25 abstracts; 4 were selected for short talks. Nine poster and short talk presenters were selected as the winner for the best presentation award. The abstract selection committee consisted of Drs. Bin Gao of NIAAA, Yang Liu of Children’s National, Bin Zhao and Ling Yang, president and vice president of NIH-CSSA, respectively. Dr. Yufei Jiang, the secretary of the SCBA DC Baltimore Chapter, effectively managed all meeting logistics. Many volunteers from the NIH-CSSA also helped with the meeting. Dr. Shi Yang from the Harvard University delivered an outstanding keynote lecture. The SCBA DC Baltimore Chapter symposium was a great success.

2017 Annual Symposium group photo