Conference on Chloride Signaling to be held September 3 -7, 2003 at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts

Society Of General Physiologists, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

A grant has been awarded to Dr. H. Criss Hartzell of Emory University School of Medicine to support a symposium on the Biology of Chloride. The symposium will be held at the Marine Biological Laboratory from September 3 -7, 2003. Presentations will be given by approximately 30 leaders in the field from around the world. There will also be sessions featuring young investigators. The purpose of the meeting is to define new directions in the physiology of chloride. Only recently have we begun to appreciate that chloride ions play fundamental roles in cell have recently been identified at a molecular level and the structures of a few are now known at atomic resolution. The impact of their disruption has been, in several cases, completely surprising. Disruption of chloride channels produces a wide range of diseases affecting muscle, bone, kidney, and the nervous system. This meeting will bring together the leaders in chloride physiology to formulate the directions this field will take in the immediate future. With scientific progress progressing so rapidly, a meeting such as this is invaluable in identifying the areas that require the most attention and are most likely to provide high payoff in terms of new insights. Poster sessions where people present their newest, as yet unpublished, data will serve as a forum for discussion of general directions and identification of the highest priority issues. Certainly it is now clear that chloride ions are important in human disease, but chloride has other functions that we have only glimpsed. Proteins that regulate chloride are present in other organisms, including worms, flies, and plants, but their functions remain poorly elucidated. These proteins may have potential as targets that can be manipulated genetically or chemically to enhance food production or control pests. This meeting of experts in the field and their students will provide a fertile ground for exploring these ideas.