title: Current directions and future perspectives from the third Nematostella research conference.
abstract: The third Nematostella vectensis Research Conference took place in December 2013 in Eilat, Israel, as a satellite to the 8th International Conference on Coelenterate Biology. The starlet sea anemone, N. vectensis, has emerged as a powerful cnidarian model, in large part due to the extensive genomic and transcriptomic resources and molecular approaches that are becoming available for Nematostella, which were the focus of several presentations. In addition, research was presented highlighting the broader utility of this species for studies of development, circadian rhythms, signal transduction, and gene-environment interactions.
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 45 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA. Electronic address: atarrant@whoi.edu.
authors.forename: Ann M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Tarrant
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Boston University, 5 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Gilmore
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Woodward Hall 245, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA.
authors.forename: Adam M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Reitzel
authors.affiliation: The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel.
authors.forename: Oren
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Evolution and Development, University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Technau
authors.affiliation: Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, St. Augustine, FL 32136, USA.
authors.forename: Mark Q
authors.initials: MQ
authors.lastname: Martindale
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003063:Cnidaria / Q000502:physiology*; D007557:Israel; D012106:Research / Q000639:trends
keywords: Cnidaria; Developmental biology; Genomics; Nematostella vectensis; Transcriptomics