CELL CONTACT AND ADHESION GORDON CONFERENCE

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Funds are requested to support the Gordon Conference on Cell Contact and Adhesion. This conference has convened every other year since 1973, and represents one of the key meetings in the field. The conference is intended to bring together a diversity of scientists in a format highly conducive to both formal and informal exchange. In addition, the meeting provides an excellent educational opportunity for those who are beginning their careers in the area. The speakers chosen represent not only some of the most active groups, but also individuals with the capacity to generate useful discussion of their own and other topics. The sessions emphasize areas of recent progress, and are of interest to a diverse community of scientists including molecular biologists, cell biologists, developmental biologists, neurobiologists, and cancer biologists. The conference will be organized around several biological problems or themes. One such theme, the establishment of neuronal connections, is contributing significantly to our general understanding of cell-cell recognition, which is highly relevant to other areas of cell adhesion and morphogenesis. A major session on the structure, mechanisms, and regulation of adhesive contacts will contribute to our understanding of the dynamic changes in cell contacts that underlie many morphogenetic process relevant to cancer and development, including cell migration, cell rearrangement, and cell invasion. Another major session will provide an opportunity to discuss how adhesion receptors and cell junction proteins interact with signal transduction pathways that control cell growth and differentiation in embryos and in tumor cells, angiogenesis, and cell invasiveness. Also, a session will be held to address how adhesion and junctional proteins contribute to the larger problem of tissue morphogenesis in a number of different biological systems (outside the nervous system). A session of talks chosen from abstracts will also be held in order to provide an opportunity for promising young investigators to present their recent findings. This conference aims to bring together a group of scientists and students with diverse systems and approaches to allow more complete understanding of the common themes of cell adhesion and morphogenesis.