The organization also hosts the annual Fellows Program for postdocs and early-career scientists from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds.

Believed to be inspired by European conferences located at ski resorts, Keystone was founded by C. Fred Fox, a professor of microbiology in the Molecular Biology Institute at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with sponsorship from International Chemical and Nuclear Pharmaceuticals (ICN).

The organization was named the ICN-UCLA Symposium on Molecular Biology and held its first conference in Palisades Tahoe at Squaw Valley, California focusing on membrane research.

[2] The initial mission was “to provide an interdisciplinary forum for scientists working in new and rapidly emerging areas of basic and applied biological research” and California was selected to act as a counterweight to the number of related conferences on the eastern United States.

Additionally, the name changed to Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology.