ASCB Conf:Nontraditional Functions of Ubiquitin and UbLs

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The conference "Nontraditional Functions of Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-Like Proteins (UbLs)" will be held from August 12 through August 14, 2002, at the Conference Center of Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This meeting is sponsored and partially funded by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). This conference is the only international meeting this year that focuses on noncanonical functions of Ub and is open to a significant number of young scientists who are not established members of the ubiquitin field. The purpose of this conference is to foster interactions between scientists from diverse biological backgrounds who are working on non-proteasome-dependent roles of ubiquitin and UbLs. In this application we request partial funding for the 2002 conference. Increasing evidence suggests that ubiquitin and UbLs regulate cell functions by mechanisms that are independent of proteasome-mediated degradation. The conference will focus on these expanding, newly-discovered functions, with little coverage of proteasomal proteolysis. Some of the most exciting current work in the ubiquitin field is in the area of monoubiquitination, a modification that seldom targets substrates to proteasomes. The emerging roles of monoubiquitination and UbLs squarely place these modifiers within processes of central interest to cell biologists, including the endocytosis of growth factor receptors, protein transport, intracellular signaling, the inflammatory response, viral assembly, development, gene regulation, and DNA repair. Defects in the monoubiquitination of specific proteins are directly linked to an inherited form of severe hypertension and several forms of cancer. Ubiquitin-like proteins also modify proteins, such as the p53tumor suppressor and its dedicated ubiquitin ligase, Mdm2, that play crucial roles in cancer prevention. The conference will convene scientists from this broad range of research areas. The aforementioned topics are among those to be addressed in the five scientific sessions of the 2002 ASCB Summer Conference. These sessions will consist of a mixture of invited talks and presentations to be selected based on submitted abstracts. The latter speakers will be chosen with special attention to younger investigators and exciting recent developments. There will also be a poster session. The format of the Conference, and its small size, are designed to foster interactions among the 200 participants.