Symposium: Beyond Carrier Proteins: Integrative and Evolutionary Roles of Hormone-binding Proteins, to be held January 2-6, 2002 in Anaheim, California

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The goal for this symposium is to advance the recognition of hormone-binding proteins (HBPs) as centrally-positioned regulators in endocrine systems, that have significant influences both in the integration of cell and physiological function as well as in the evolution of endocrine systems. In this symposium, HBPs will be defined as proteins in the extracellular environment (mostly) that bind hormones or similar factors, usually with a high affinity, and that therefore maintain a central regulatory position between a hormone and its ability to transduce its signal through its cell receptor. The emphasis of the symposium will be to look beyond the role of HBPs as 'carrier proteins' and instead to bring in the emerging concepts of HBPs as multifunctional regulatory proteins that can play dynamic --even predominant-- roles in integrating endocrine systems. Of particular interest will be where HBPs have developed regulatory properties beyond that of primary hormone-binding, including those that broadcast into other endocrine systems. With the diverse properties of HBPs being increasingly defined, it is also becoming clear that many HBPs have interesting evolutionary histories, not only in the development of their properties through different taxa, but also in their influences on the evolution of the hormone and receptor systems with which they interact. Such data are providing an enhanced understanding, and biological perspective, of the roles of HBPs in endocrine systems. In this symposium, there will be 13 plenary lectures by speakers who will serve as "ambassadors" for their respective HBP(s) of interest. The speakers are encouraged to present their own work in the context of general and underlying regulatory mechanisms ("integrative context") and, where possible, in the context of the evolution of the respective endocrine systems ("evolutionary context"). It is expected that several of the speakers will also draw connections between different HBP/endocrine systems, as well as to diverse physiological systems. Given the involvement of HBP/endocrine systems in the integration and evolution of diverse physiological systems, including reproduction, development, neural systems, immune systems, and others, this type of symposium will afford an opportunity for a wide spectrum of biologists to learn about a forefront area in endocrinology with relevance to them. Twelve speakers will consider more specific aspects of certain HBPs, with a thirteenth lecture to be more general and given as the first annual Howard A. Bern Lecture in Comparative Endocrinology and presented by the namesake himself this year. On the following day, there will be an associated HBP Mini-Symposium at which students, postdocs, and others will have an opportunity to participate. The internationally recognized Journal of Endocrinology will publish the symposium proceedings. To date, general recognition of the importance of HBPs to endocrine regulation and to the evolution of endocrine systems has been limited, despite increasingly compelling evidence for their central, key roles in many systems. As far as we are aware, there has not yet been a broad-reaching symposium of this type, which orients itself on a "cross-cutting" theoretical basis. Particularly unique are the emphases on the multifunctional nature of HBPs and on their role in endocrine system evolution.