Conference: "RNA and Protein Folding and beyond: A vision for the next decade"; to be held September 15 and 16, 2011, in Arlington, VA.

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

This award is in support of a two-day meeting entitled "RNA and Protein Folding and beyond: A vision for the next decade" to be held in Arlington, Virginia, on September 12 and 13, 2011. About twenty researchers representing a broad range of expertise and vision will be assembled with the purpose of assessing the outstanding problems in self-assembly of proteins and RNA, and how these are related to function and assembly at larger scales. This workshop will convene about 20 speakers that represent all areas of RNA and protein folding as well as areas related to the assembly of these entities into larger complexes and higher order organized structures. One of the great challenges in biology is to integrate knowledge and capabilities at the individual subunit level with the ability to describe how these interact to affect function at the cellular level. This workshop will address the current status of RNA and protein folding, and the assembly and functions involving such entities. The major aim of the meeting is to identify major issues that must be addressed in theory, simulations, and experiments in the next decade so that the roles which proteins and RNA play to carry out the myriad functions at the cellular level, in concert and in isolation, can be assessed and predicted. The meeting will cover the major unsolved problems in the area of protein and RNA assembly, identify common themes, and chart a course for how to integrate the behavior of individual subunits to describe phenomena at the systems level. This workshop is a unique way to assemble some of the leading scientists to discuss topics that are never brought up at traditional meetings. As such this will be the first opportunity to bring together two communities that do not normally communicate with each other. Second, the exchange of ideas will be crucial in identifying new areas of research, which have to be tackled in the immediate future as we develop a language and framework for the next phase of quantitative research in biology. A broad spectrum of scientists with backgrounds in physics, chemistry and biology will be brought together to define the issues that have to be tackled and to identify the approaches that are needed.