Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - Meetings and Courses

Meetings and Courses

Aside from its research mission, the laboratory is host to world-class scientific conferences on a variety of topics. The first annual Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Symposium on Quantitative Biology was held in 1934. The symposium in 1960, Biological Clocks, was arguably the founding moment of the field of chronobiology. Now in addition to the Symposium over 24 meetings are held annually, for between 200 and 500 scientists. At the Banbury Center discussion-style meetings are held for a maximum of 36 invited participants. These elite meetings cover often controversial topics in molecular biology and neuroscience.

Salvador Luria and Max Delbrück founded the Phage Course in 1948, a course that trained many of the leaders of the new field of molecular genetics. The courses proliferated under Watson's guidance and each year some 28 advanced courses are held for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who travel to CSHL from throughout the world.

The laboratory also offers programs for students in high school and college in biotechnology and biology. The lab is particularly well known for its contributions towards the training of young scientists, notably through the establishment of its Undergraduate Research Program in 1959, its Dolan DNA Learning Center in 1988, and the founding of the Watson School of Biological Sciences in 1998. Since 1990 Partners for the Future allows seniors from high schools throughout Long Island to conduct original research with the aid of a scientist mentor.