Symposium - Adaptations for Salt and Water Balance in Vertebrates, Nagoya Japan, May 31 - June 5, 2011

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These funds support participation of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and younginvestigators at the International Conference on Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry(ICCPB 2011), to be held in Nagoya, Japan. Participants will build world-wide connections andgain cross-cultural exposure to institutions interested in global environmental effects on animals.Advances in understanding how animals adapt to environmental changes will support goals ofsafeguarding biodiversity at all levels. Funds will support individuals who have demonstratedexceptional aptitude and potential for advancing the field of epithelial fluid and solute dynamicsand its regulation. A select group of individuals will present talks in a symposium focusing onconcepts essential to understanding the role of epithelia in water and solute balance thisbalance has an overarching role in maintaining all life's basic functions. Epithelia are found in allorgans, and exist as sheets of cells, assembled together by precisely arranged junctional proteinsthat lie between cells. Notably, the dynamics of water and solute flows through cells of theepithelial sheet are highly integrated with flows through junctions of the epithelial sheet, in aregulated, but poorly understood fashion. The symposium speakers will stress the importance ofhow and why cell-to-cell contact and plasticity of these systems are fundamental to appropriatetissue water and solute dynamics for all vertebrates. Other individuals supported by this grantwill have the opportunity to present their research findings, face-to-face in poster sessions, withscientists from nearly every continent who work in widely diverse biological fields. A major goalwill be to identify and select women and individuals of underrepresented ethnic minoritybackground as recipients of these travel funds. Funding for student and trainee initiatives atICCPB 2011 will play a key role in attracting and retaining the brightest and best-trainedcomparative physiologists.