U.S.-Japan Joint Seminar: Biophysical Chemistry of Retinal Proteins/January 1992/Honolulu HI

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This award provides support for the participation of eight US scientists in a joint US-Japan seminar on "the Biophysical Chemistry of Retinal Proteins". The chemistry of retinal proteins is a rapidly emerging area of biophysics. Retinal- containing pigments are a class of intrinsic membrane proteins the mediate energy and information transduction. Much research in this area concentrates upon the molecular mechanisms of the transduction processes and recent progress on site-specific mutagenesis, sequence and structure determination and spectroscopic studies of intermediate structure and dynamics now present the real possibility of determining the molecular mechanism of these processes. Most of the main contributions to this area have been made by American and Japanese scientists, many of whom it is intended should participate in this seminar. For this reason the seminar should provide an excellent forum for formulating a more complete picture or retinal transduction. The seminar is to be held on January 12-18, 1992 at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. The co-organizers are Professor Richard Mathies, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley and Associate Professor Toshiaki Kakitani, Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Japan. Specific topics to be discussed at the seminar include (1) retinal protein structure and genetics; (2) chromophore structure and the environment; (3) photoactivation of retinal-proteins; (4) analysis of structure and transduction mechanisms; and (5) pigment regeneration and signal transduc- tion. These topics represent the right combination of biochemistry, spectrochemistry and genetic engineering to make a real contribution to this subject area. The seminar will permit representatives from several research groups in the two countries to meet and exchange information which could lead to more extensive research collaboration.