SALK CONFERENCE ON EUKARYOTIC DNA REPLICATION

Salk Institute For Biological Studies, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

The first Salk Conference on Eukaryotic DNA Replication will be at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, September 6-10, 2000. The conference will provide up to 350 places for students, postdocs, professors and biotechnology researchers to meet and discuss novel findings of the past year. Due to its West coast location, increased participation from West coast and Pacific labs is expected. The conference has been organized to fulfill the need for an annual conference on this topic generated by the rapidly increasing activity in this field. Advances in this area are continuing to impact significantly on issues related to human health, including the etiology, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, aging, and myriad diseases related to development, the immune system, and neural degeneration. The underlying theme of the meeting will be consideration of genomic instability, to encourage a deeper understanding of links between cellular replication and repair systems. Outstanding researchers have been invited to serve as chairs in sessions devoted to origin structure, Initiation, Polymerases, DNA Repair, Checkpoints and Genome Integrity, Telomeres, Chromatin Structure, and Organellar Replication. These chairs will provide in-depth introductions to the most important concepts and unresolved problems in each field. All other presentations and attendees will be chosen from abstracts to ensure that the forefront of research is presented and to encourage active participation of younger researchers. The meeting will be administered by the experienced staff of the state of the art Salk Conference Center. Scientific organizers are Susan Forsburg, Salk Institute; Geoffrey Wahl, Salk Institute, and Judith campbell, California Institute of California. This conference complements both temporally and geographically the current biennial DNA replication meeting held at Cold Spring Harbor in odd-numbered years. In summary, the meeting is designed to significantly broaden discussion of the most topical issues confronting eukaryotic DNA replication. In particular, the West Coast venue should provide an additional option for students and postdocs who have been unable to attend East Coast conferences due to the greater cost of such meetings. Furthermore, substantial attendance by Japanese and Asian researchers is expected at this Pacific Coast conference. We anticipate that the topics presented and comfortable venue will encourage new researchers to enter this important field, as well as provide experienced researchers with the new approaches needed to make significant future advances.