A meeting of the Bioengineering Consortium (BECON) was held on March 15, 2000, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM in Room 151 of Building 1 on the NIH Main Campus. The meeting consisted of a closed business session from 3:00 to 4:10 PM followed by an open presentation by National Science Foundation (NSF) staff. The following items were discussed during the meeting:

Closed Session:

1. Status of the BECON 2000 Nanotechnology Symposium and Nanotechnology Programs - Plans for the BECON 2000 Nanotechnology Symposium are proceeding on schedule. The symposium Web site has been released and is fully operational. Most of the current effort is aimed at completing plans for the eight workshop sessions. Moderators for all sessions have been confirmed, and panel members are being identified and contacted. The deadline for posters and abstracts is March 22.
   
   A "NIH-101" session is planned for the afternoon of the second day of the conference. This session is aimed at providing information to prospective investigators on opportunities and how to work with NIH, DOE, and NSF. Current plans are to have a plenary session consisting of presentations on NIH structure and protocols followed by small breakout sessions staffed by NIH, DOE, and NSF personnel.

2. Office of Bioengineering and Bioimaging - Plans to establish an office of Bioengineering and Bioimaging within the Office of the Director at NIH were discussed. Current efforts are aimed at preparing a detailed establishment package, identifying space, and preparing staff position descriptions.
   
   
3. BECON Advisory Committee - Plans to develop a BECON Advisory Committee to review the first three years of operation were discussed.
   
   
4. Topic for BECON 2001 - Five candidate topics for the 2001 BECON Bioengineering Symposium were discussed A topic was selected and will be discussed among the members prior to final approval.

Open Session:

Dr's. Debbie Crawford, Y. T. Chien, and George Vermont of the National Science Foundation (NSF) discussed the NSF's structure and missions, information technology programs, bioengineering programs, and possible areas of collaboration with other agencies. NSF conducts major research and training programs in some of the same technical areas as the NIH. The primary areas of collaboration of interest to BECON are in training, information technology (computer applications, bioinformatics, and modeling), and bioengineering (nanotechnology, sensors, and biophotonics).