The Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) believes that the broad nature and lack of “biology” boundaries implicit in Experimental Biology give it a pivotal role in the development of Life Sciences which are of considerable benefit to its members and to society. In particular, Experimental Biology contributes to knowledge that can be applied to the development of agriculture and medicine and to understanding the impacts of human activity on living organisms and ecosystems. The SEB offers grants to students and early career scientists, runs a series of symposia – including a multidisciplinary annual meeting which attracts over 800 international attendees – and publishes three (soon to be four) high class scientific journals. For more information please visit www.sebiology.org

The SEB is funding student travel grants and is offering awards for best hardware, poster and oral presentation at the AMAM 2013.

TETRA provides unique, highly innovative systems and technologies for the automation of sensitive and precise research, laboratory and manufacturing processes. The product portfolio includes test systems for material and surface technology and lightweight robots for human assistant and service tasks. TETRA`s specialty in bionics are robotic systems for sensitive handling, human assistance and sophisticated testing tasks with the lowest mass and minimal energy consumption. Applications of this comprehensive technology include industrial manufacturing, laboratory and life sciences (medicine, biotechnology).

Product portfolio:

• Lightweight robot arm BioRob
• Customized biologically inspired robot systems for assistance, service and test

Mission statement: In meeting its responsibilities as a research funding organisation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) must remain abreast of current developments in higher education. In doing so, the DFG is able to address challenges such as the need to provide sustainable support for young researchers, the interdisciplinarisation of the sciences and humanities, and support for networking in the field of research.

The DFG is supporting this meeting within the grant SE1042/16-1. With this grant we are able to compensate the traveling costs of all invited speakers of the keynote talks and the tandem talks.

Brain Corporation is a pioneer in developing novel algorithms based on the functionality of the nervous system, with applications in visual perception, motor control, and autonomous navigation. It employs some of the world’s leading experts in computational neuroscience to build sophisticated and efficient models of the nervous system. Brain Corporation is working with Qualcomm Incorporated on designing specialized neuromorphic hardware to bring to market the next generation of smart consumer products utilizing artificial nervous systems.

Vision Project - We are recreating the mammalian visual system in a large-scale model that faithfully reproduces the known anatomy and spiking dynamics of the retina, visual cortex, inferior temporal cortex, and corresponding subcortical structures. The visual system will endow autonomous agents with visual perception necessary for autonomous navigation, tracking, and recognition of objects in the environment.

Motor Control Project - We are building spiking models of action selection, reinforcement learning, and motor control that are based on the known anatomy and physiology of mammalian cerebellum and basal ganglia. The motor control system will endow robots with the ability to control their effectors and actuators to manipulate objects in real-world environments.