Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, 6–10 August 2008
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~pnp/Research/FDIGS_2008/Welcome.html
Contact
Don Goodman-Wilson
Washington University in St Louis
What is the link between genes and behavior? How does our genotype interact with our environment to produce behavior? What methods are available to investigate these questions? What are the societal and philosophical implications of discovering such links? Is asking these questions a fruitful enterprise to begin with?
The Future Directions in Genetics Studies Graduate Training Workshop (FDIGS) helped dissertating graduate students grapple with these and other related questions. FDIGS was an off-year workshop of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB). The workshop is focused on the new frontier between genetics and genomics on one hand and neuroscience and psychology on the other. This frontier is developing new and exciting research paradigms in behavioral and psychiatric genetics, genetical neuroscience, social neuroscience, developmental psychobiology and behavioral epigenetics.
Modeled on the very successful graduate training Future Directions in Biology Studies (FDIBS) workshop held in Bloomington Indiana in 2006 and Future Directions for the International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (FDISH) workshop held in San Francisco in 2004, FDIGS provided a forum for graduate students to explore the philosophical, historical and social significance of this new research interface.