Molecular basis of circadian rhythms : function of clock genes

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Circadian clock functions in almost all organisms and function to adapt the life to daily alternating environment. Molecular mechanism of the circadian clock is one of the most interesting subject of basic biology nowadays. Recent advances in molecular genetic approaches to the clock genes identified several clock genes in model organisms. Recently, clock genes of cyanobacteria and mammals was cloned by Japanese scientists and US-Japan collaboration become more important for advance in this field. The project had been applied as International research grants and accepted as basic research grants for 1999-2000. The Center of the biological timing (NSF) is the partner group of US scientists. To promote collaboration and individual research projects of the project members, the first symposium had been held at Hawaii, in 1999 and the second at Kyoto in 2000. In both symposiums, many non-member scientists were also invited and there were very active presentation and discussion, which then trigger collaboration and simulate research of project members. In addition to two symposiums, domestic workshop was held at Inuyama, Aichi, in late 1999 to promote and activate young Japanese scientist who, otherwise, would not have a chance to discuss because many of them belong to different communities.With these activities, new collaboration between Japan and US was started and some collaborations which already started were promoted. Also, the information of the symposium were very stimulus for each project members. After all, with this project, understanding for molecular basis of the circadian clock has been greatly advanced and we recognized that simple negative feedback dogma is insufficient to explain circadian characteristics that features the circadian oscillate to be adaptive. To obtain full understanding the clock at molecular level, many unknown processes and whole cellular metabolism should be included in the circadian system.