GPCR Reatreat
The GPCR Retreat focuses on advances in our understanding of how GPCRs operate in cell communication. The main goal of the GPCR Retreat is to provide a venue for students, post-doctoral fellows, and principal investigators from academia and industry to discuss and debate existing and novel concepts in GPCR biology.
One of the core values of this international meeting is to promote interactions among all participants of all diversity backgrounds, particularly between trainees and principal investigators. Each year, approximately 2/3 of the participants are trainees. Registration to the GPCR Retreat is capped at 200 participants to promote an intimate environment.
Most importantly, the GPCR Retreat dedicates time for two trainee symposia, an initiative that began in the Ottawa 2017 edition, to showcase the breadth of diversity in GPCR trainee communities. For the Ottawa 2017 GPCR Retreat, of the ten talks from trainees 80% were from women and 60% from visible minorities. Over the years, the meeting has grown into one of the most recognized international events in the field. That reputation has led to broad participation from the Great Lakes region and beyond.
Conference History
The GPCR Retreat is an annual joint meeting with the Club des récepteurs à Sept Domaines Transmembranaires du Québec that rotates around locations in Canada and the United States surrounding the Great Lakes region.
The first Great Lakes GPCR Retreat was conceived, organized and held in London, Ontario, Canada in October 1999. The following year, the Great Lakes GPCR Retreat partnered with the annual symposium of the Club des Récepteurs à Sept Domains Transmembranaires du Québec. The meeting tours through many of the major universities in the Great Lakes region in both Canada and the United States.
The past few GPCR retreats have been held in:
- Niagara-on-the-lake (2022)
- Bromont, Québec (2019)
- Detroit, Michigan (2018)
- Ottawa, Ontario (2017)
- Chicago, Illinois (2016)
- Toronto, Ontario (2015)
- Bromont, Québec (2014)
- Cleveland, Ohio (2013)
London, Ontario (2012)
Fairmont Le Château Montebello, Québec, Canada
November 2-4, 2023
We are pleased to welcome you at Le Château Montebello, the 22nd Annual Great Lakes G Protein-Coupled Receptor Retreat held jointly with the Club des Récepteurs à Sept Domaines Transmembranaires du Québec. The meeting will be held on Nov. 2-4, 2023 at the Chateau Montebello, Québec.
The Chateau Montebello is an exceptional venue, and is located 1 hr from Ottawa, or 1.5 hr from Montreal in the beautiful Laurentian Mountains of Canada. The fall colors of the leaves are spectacular, and the weekend of science is an intense and interactive experience, and a great training environment for our students and post-doctoral fellows.
The meeting is launched on Thursday with two Trainee Symposia and the Plenary Lecture, followed by 6 symposia on Friday and Saturday and the closing Keynote Lecture. The deadline for registration is September 21, 2023.
For the 22nd edition, the Organizing Committee has again lived up to the expectations by putting together an outstanding program with a special thought for Marc Caron (1946-2022) to commemorate his great contributions to the GPCR and Neurosciences fields. Dr. Kathleen Caron of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, unquestionably one of the pioneers involved in deciphering how receptor activity-modifying proteins or RAMPs regulate GPCR function, is confirmed as Plenary Speaker of the inaugural Marc G. Caron keynote lecture on November 2nd.
Additionally, there will be a Marc G. Caron Honorary Symposium by Caron Lab alumni to honor his memory. We have also confirmed Dr. Arthur Christopoulos of Monash University in Australia, one of the pioneers in the medicinal chemistry, computational and mathematical modelling of GPCRs, as Plenary Speaker of the Hyman B. Niznik keynote lecture, which will close the conference. The program will include also world-class and diverse GPCR scientists working in the arenas of structure and signaling, neuroscience, cancer, translational and model systems.
As in previous editions, trainees are more than welcome to this unique meeting. Indeed, for the Montebello 2023 edition, we have organized two trainee symposiums to acknowledge formally the participation of our graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Additionally, each symposium of the GPCR Retreat 2023 will include one trainee short talk selected from abstracts. Trainees of diversity groups are strongly encouraged to register to the meeting and submit an abstract for consideration for the trainee symposia and selected trainee short talks.
Your participation has already made this unique event a success. We are thrilled by the overwhelming interest in this event by the GPCR research community. We trust that the collegial and intimate atmosphere provided by Le Château Montebello will be suited for an environment where graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and principal investigators can have stimulating discussions and debates on GPCR research presented at this meeting.
We would like to thank all our Sponsors for their ongoing generous support of the meeting. Without their support, this meeting will not be possible.
If you have any suggestions or comments for either this Retreat or future meetings, we look forward to receiving your feedback. Finally, Bienvenue and we hope you will enjoy your stay in Montebello and find the Retreat stimulating and satisfying.
Sincerely,
The Organizing Committee
GPCR Retreat Organizers
