Workshop: International Meeting on Protein Folding and Dynamics; to be held October 15-17, 2012 in Bangalore, India

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

This award is in support of a two-day meeting entitled "International Meeting on Protein Folding and Dynamics" to be held at the International Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, India, on October 15-17, 2012. The purpose of the meeting is to bring together scientists from the USA, Europe, and Asia to discuss recent advances and future research in the area of protein folding. In addition, the conference will serve as an inaugural forum for introducing some of the activities in the newly initiated institutions (NCBS, Technical University of Munich, and the University of Maryland) into the Physics of Living Systems (POLS) network. This conference, therefore, takes on the importance of formally informing the students in NCBS to the activities and benefits of the POLS network. Among the invited speakers several are also part of the Network nodes. About twenty researchers representing a broad range of expertise and vision will be assembled with the purpose of assessing the outstanding problems in folding of proteins, and how these are related to function at larger scales. This workshop will convene about 20 speakers that represent all areas of protein folding as well as areas related to the assembly of proteins 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. 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 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 folding, identify common themes, and chart a course for how to integrate the behavior of individual subunits to describe phenomena at the systems level. Broader impacts: This workshop is a unique way to assemble some of the leading scientists in the world to discuss topics that are never discussed in such depth at traditional meetings. 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.