On behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE), Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program, the Biological Systems Science Division (BSSD) is excited to have you participate in the first fully virtual Principal Investigator (PI) meeting for both the Genomic Science Program (GSP, including the USDA-DOE Plant Feedstocks Genomics for Bioenergy Program) and the Bioimaging Science Program (BSP). BSSD combines fundamental systems biology research across disciplines with support for enabling capabilities and user facilities to foster scientific discovery. BSSD’s integrated scientific goals and strategies are to support projects to understand, predict, design, and manipulate biological systems for the purpose of addressing DOE mission objectives in energy and the environment.

Given the importance of cross-disciplinary integration in supporting the diversity of research funded within the Division, this year’s GSP and BSP Annual PI Meetings will share a combined first morning plenary session with a key note from Dr. Eva Nogales Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. With the meetings being held virtually and concurrently, GSP and BSP attendees can choose to register and attend presentations for both meetings. BSSD hopes this provides an opportunity for researchers to gain perspective on the exciting and emerging research challenges the communities are facing.