CONFERENCE ON CHEMOKINES AND CHEMOKINE RECEPTORS

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from Applicant's Abstract) The 2001 Keystone Symposium on Chemokines and Chemokine Receptors will be a timely and multidisciplinary conference designed to bring together a large group of both leading, established scientists and younger, emerging scientists, to present and discuss a wide array of topics regarding chemokine biology. Chemokines are members of a growing superfamily of proteins whose primary function is to control leukocyte trafficking through lymphoid organs and other tissues. Experimental evidence has linked chemokines and their receptors with a variety of acute and chronic inflammatory settings, allergic disease, HIV and other infectious disease, and cancer. Recently, disease model studies using either genetically modified animals, or treatment with chemokine or receptor blocking agents, have provided in vivo proof of the pathogenetic role played by some chemokines in disease, thereby validating chemokines and their receptors as pharmacological targets. Finally, chemokine receptors have also been found on a number of nonhematopoietic cells. Critical problems in the field include: difficulty in discovering small molecule chemokine inhibitors, indicating an incomplete understanding of chemokine ligand-receptor interactions; gaps in connecting chemokine receptor activation with the molecular machinery of cell migration; and an unclear vision of the physiology of chemokines in non- hematopoietic cells. This meeting will bring together scientists working on the molecular basis of chemokine responses with those working at the organismal level on problems of disease and the immune response. The goal is to stimulate new approaches to critical problems in chemokine research that may ultimately result in chemokine-directed therapeutics.