2005 FASEB Summer Research Conference on Ciliate Molecular Biology to be held August 3-8, 2005 at IL Ciocco in Tuscany, Italy

Federation Of Amer Societies For Exper Biology, Rockville MD

Investigators

Abstract

The "Eleventh International Meeting on Ciliate Molecular Biology" will be held as a FASEB Summer Research Conference at Il Ciocco in Tuscany, Italy, from August 3 through August 8, 2005. The meeting will bring together 160-170 scientists from a variety of countries. Using ciliated protozoa as their model system, these researchers employ molecular approaches to investigate diverse biological problems. Historically, work on ciliated protozoa has provided a number of remarkable insights into important and universal biological processes, such as the erosion of the ends of chromosomes during ageing and the remodeling of chromosomes during development. The keynote presentation will be made by Joel Rosenbaum of Yale University on "Control of Ciliary and Flagellar Growth: Dynamics of Intraflagellar Transport," an important topic relevant to cilia wherever they occur - in lungs, sperm, kidneys, embryonic development and elsewhere. The continued development of molecular tools for ciliates has made them favorable models for studying numerous biological processes shared with a wide variety of eukaryotic organisms, including humans. This meeting seeks to bring together investigators who work in these various fields but who are united by their use of ciliates as models, in order to foster the efficient exchange of unpublished research results and technical advances. There will be nine platform sessions, two workshops and two poster sessions. The topics of the platform sessions represent areas of active ciliate research. The topic areas include DNA and chromatin, ranging from genome organization and evolution through the use of genomic information; cell structure and function, including motility, development and environmental sensing; and technologies for the study of ciliates. The workshops will be on "Genomics" and "Ciliates in the Classroom." The genomics workshop is intended to further develop the ciliate genome sequencing efforts, as well as bring the use of the genomic information to a new level, and to enable researchers to share information on the fast-emerging post-genomic resources for ciliates. The second workshop focuses on "Ciliates in the Classroom." Ciliated protozoa have long been used as teaching tools because of their complex biology, large size, and simple culture requirements. Inspired by the 2003 FASEB meeting, many conferees have further developed teaching modules (primarily for undergraduate courses) that utilize ciliates and have provided the information on web sites. The workshop will provide a forum for not only exchanging such teaching tools, but also organizing a global distributed ciliate molecular biology project for undergraduates. Funding from the National Science Foundation will be used to help defray the costs of attendance at the meeting for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and beginning faculty.