Introduction   Agenda   Organizing Committee   White Papers   Accommodations   Attendee Instructions   Contact

Scientific Strategic Planning Workshops

Life Sciences

January 15-16, 2008

A workshop on strategic planning for Life Sciences at the NSLS and NSLS-II will be held at Brookhaven National Laboratory on January 15-16, 2008.

Introduction:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is in the advanced stages of planning the design of a third generation synchrotron light source, NSLS-II. In July of 2007, the first NSLS-II User Workshop was held and the conceptual design and current status of the new machine were presented. As part of this workshop, breakout sessions were held in eight scientific areas, including Life Sciences. The Life Sciences breakout session identified a number of scientific drivers and key tools needed for current and future life sciences-based research at the NSLS and NSLS-II. A series of white papers was generated from the breakout session that summarized the discussions. Now, the next step in this process is to identify specific scientific capabilities and beamlines that are needed and to organize the advisory teams that will lead these efforts.

Goal and Scope:
The goal of this workshop is to generate a detailed white paper that presents a vision of Life Sciences research, beamlines, and facilities at NSLS-II and describes the path forward and timeline toward achieving this goal.

In preparation for the workshop, the workshop organizers and advisors are charged to use earlier workshop recommendations and recent technical advances to develop:

• a preliminary-plan for the new NSLS-II beamlines needed as primary resources for each scientific community
• a preliminary-plan of NSLS beamlines and/or endstations that can be upgraded and transitioned
• a preliminary-plan for LOB facilities required by the community
• a scenario for the phased construction of the suite of new and transitioned beamlines that will minimize down-time for the scientific community
• Potential funding strategies and timeline

These initial ideas will be presented at the workshop and evaluated and refined by the Life Sciences community. The agenda for the workshop will include preliminary-plan presentations, community discussions, and break-out sessions for beamlines focused on particular techniques. We also anticipate that the nucleus of the Beamline Advisory Teams (BATs) for the life sciences beamlines will be discussed at this workshop.

Participation:
The workshop is open to all who wish to participate but registration is required. For a list of other registered participants, click here. In order to serve the broad interests and requirements of Life Sciences researchers, we need your valuable input on the priority beamlines and their specifications, ideas for ways to enhance their performance, ideas for research and development projects that will provide unique capabilities for the beamlines, high-impact science problems where understanding structure and function is crucial, and ideas for new synchrotron techniques or novel beamline concepts. Thus, we strongly encourage your attendance and suggest that you email a 1-page abstract to the workshop organizer describing the nature of your ideas. This is your opportunity to get your agenda heard, written, and acted upon.

Registration Deadline: Friday, January 11, 2008