The symposium was sandwiched between a gracious open house hosted by Marge and Don Graves at their home on Friday, Sept. 22, and a banquet at the Cottage on Broad in Story City on Saturday evening. Don and Marge left on October 2 for Santa Barbara, CA where Don will associate with colleagues at the University of California there. Although missing them terribly, we wish them well in their new adventure. Our wonderful atrium was used for the many posters that accompanied the talks. The symposium excited much interest and interaction among its participants.
Plants clearly defend themselves quite well against most of their enemies, except for humans.
Skillfully organized by Gloria Culver and Andy Norris, our fall seminar series proved to be a great success. The series ran from Aug. 24 to Dec. 7 and included a great variety of topics. The series was a broadly based learning experience for both faculty and students. Of particular interest to BBMB members were the talks of Indergit Singh, a former Ph.D. student with Darrel Goll in our department, on lipids as mediators of neuroinflammatory disease and of J. Gregor Sutcliffe, the keynote speaker, on the hypocretins, a group of hypothalamus-specific, neuroexcitatory peptides. A nice reception at the Reiman Gardens followed Prof. Sutcliffe's keynote address.