All:
I can tell you from having attended all 5 previous conferences that these events are amazing, as a general life extension enthusiast, a semiprofessional biogerontologist, and as a CR practitioner: see my rave review of past CR Society conferences for details. As I say therein, "If you care about staying young and healthy through low-Calorie, high-nutrition eating, and want to keep that lifestyle up sustainably, and if even the flat interaction with science and other CR practitioners over email engages you, you should be there. Heck, if a cantankerous, introverted, antisocial bastard like myself can have such a good time, anyone who actually has some social skills will love it."2009 CR Society Conference
The Sixth CR Society Conference (CR-VI) will be held in Atlanta from November 18-22, 2009 as a part of The Gerontological Society of America's 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting at the Hilton Atlanta and Atlanta Marriott Marquis.
The first five CR Society conferences were small "CRS only" events attracting between 25 and 85 attendees. This time we are partnering with the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) to have our conference as a part of the much larger GSA Meeting. The GSA has over 5000 members with over 3300 attending their last conference. [It is also the premier professional association for gerontology as a whole: biogerontologists, as well as geriatric medical practitioners, social gerontologists, some specialized demographers, etc -MR]. The theme of this year's conference is "Creative Approaches to Healthy Aging," fitting our goals perfectly!
Tentative GSA Meeting Schedule
The main CR Society scientific speaker tracks will be on Friday November 20 and Saturday November 21. The details about our speakers, welcome reception, and meals will be announced as soon as plans are firm.
Registration
CR Society members (paying membership levels) will be able to register for the Conference at the GSA member rate ($275 Early Bird). The CR Society member registration includes both the CR Society conference and the GSA Conference. Instructions for registering are in the Members Only Area of this website. To view the instructions, you must be a paid CR Society member and login with your CR Society account information. Non-members must first join the CR Society in order to register for the conference [at this special discounted rate -MR].
This is a great opportunity for CR Society members to attend the CR Society Conference and also have access to the GSA's Scientific meeting.
GSA Conference Biological Sciences Program
"The Biological Sciences (BS) Program is designed for researchers and professionals with interests in the biological processes that underlie aging. Paper, poster, and symposium sessions will address the aging process at the molecular, cellular, and organismal level, as well as the specific disease conditions that are related to, or that accompany, the aging process."
Meals
The CR Society will have a Dinner on Friday, November 20, and a lunch on Saturday, November 21. Costs are $60 for the dinner and $40 for the lunch. The Meal menus are available [as] PDF download]. Register and pay for the meals when registering for the conference.
Even if you're not on CR, there are plenty of reasons to attend: wanting to learn more about the science of CR and possible CR mimetics; to attend, at a discounted rate, the scientific session of the GSA, which is solid, often-unpublished biogerontological (including but not limted to CR) research; to hang out with fellow prolongevists, CR or not; and to mix it up a bit with the gerontological establishment and hopefully push some paradigms. As I also say in my review, "considering the total coup that Robert and David have pulled off in getting us into GSA, I'd especially like to encourage anyone with a serious interest in the science of aging and CR to attend, both because you'll have the opportunity to track down most of the big players in the field to ask about scientific developments and research issues (see caveat at the end of this paragraph), and because we will make a more favorable impression on THEM -- and thereby humanize their interest in CR [and serious life extension research] and maybe help spur more thought about human translation and more CR human research". This applies to prolongevists more broadly, too.
I briefly met a bunch of you at SENS4, but my schedule was so nuts I barely spoke to anybody and probably left many feeling that they'd been given the brush-off -- not my intention. And alas, CR VI may not be much better! But I am always delighted to be immersed in a company of people who fucking GET IT: who have broken free of the "pro-aging trance" and yearn for a future unbounded by the specter of the insidious, creeping crippling and killing of biological aging. I'm sure my fellow SENS4 attendees shared that wonderful, immersive experience of feeling that there is sanity in the world, and the delight of seeing the tools emerging from research that will help us cure the Grey Plague.
Take this opportunity to feel that again -- or for the first time. I'll be delighted to bump your fist -- and get a glimpse of (and actively work to accelerate!) research that will give us thousands more opportunities in an open future of limitless vigor and health.
