Synthetic Biology (SynBio) is a recent field of science that is on the rise. Although most SynBio laboratories are located in the US, there is also an important and increasing number in Europe and Asia. The success of iGEM, a student competition in SynBio, has built an important community of motivated students willing to contribute to this field. As European students, we believe that there is a de
ficiency of networking in European SynBio. Our community is strong, but we are not as well connected as our American counterparts. This limits the possibilities for students to exchange ideas and get experience within Europe, slowing the growth of the new generation of European Synthetic Biologists. To remedy this situation, we will organize a workshop for Young European Synthetic Biologists: YESBio. We will bring together young professionals (master’s and Ph.D. students, postdocs), to create a networking platform for collaboration and to publicize the best European SynBio labs. We will spur discussions and encourage exchanges. This workshop will center around talks given by Ph.D. students and young researchers, followed by discussions and group work sessions, treating the subjects or questions arising in the talks. We anticipate about 50-70 attendees working parallel sessions, allowing smaller groups and better interactions. We propose to arrange workshop sessions by area of application, for example Medical, Environmental or Basic Research. Additional sessions might address Ethics or Education in SynBio. We will issue an early call for speakers, poster presenters and panelists, and select only the best young talent. We will seek to attract renowned European researchers and non-academics working in the field of SynBio as keynote speakers for each of the sessions. To promote interactions between the attendants, a number of other activities will be introduced: poster sessions, virtual lab visits, open position fair etc. This workshop will deliver several valuable products. First, we will make all abstracts and presentation slides, posters and other material publicly available and open access on our website. Second, we will strive to organize the discussion and group work exercises in a way to produce a concrete result, in a form of a summary or a proposal that will also be made public. Third, we will provide European SynBio researchers with a networking platform build of attendee contact information that will then be open to other users. We would like this workshop to be first in a series of similar annual YESBio events, each of them contributing to the consolidation of the European SynBio community. In our attempt to attract young students, we would like to keep the inscription fees as low as possible, and find solutions to help students finance their traveling and housing expenditures. For this reason, we are looking for sponsoring and collaboration possibilities. We are already in touch with ERASynBio, SynBERC and YEBN, and would be glad to have other organisations and companies helping us!
