FASEB Summer Conference on: The Biology of Calpains in Health and Disease

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A FASEB summer conference is planned for July 2007 entitled "Biology of Calpains in Health and Disease". This is the fourth such meeting focusing on calpains and it will be held in Snowmass, Colorado. Funds are being requested from three different NIH institutes that include NIAMS as the primary and NHLBI and NIA as co-sponsors. Funds obtained from these institutes will provide partial support for the meeting. The meeting this year will have two main emphases; 1) understanding the biochemical properties of calpains and 2) understanding the role of calpains in various disease processes. Eight stimulating sessions are planned for the meeting including 1) Calpain Structure and Structure-Function Relationships, 2) Biochemistry of Calpains, 3) Calpains in Cancer, Apoptosis and the Cell Cycle, 3) Calpains and Striated Muscle Disease, 4) Calpains and Neurodegeneration, 5) Cell motility, Signaling and Integrins, 6) Calpains in the Modulation of Aging and Disease, 7) Calpains in Cardiac Muscle and Ischemia and 8) Calpains in Animal Science. Dr. Ernesto Carafoli will be the keynote speaker and he will present his work on calcium regulation in cells on the opening day of the meeting. Dr. Carafoli is a world expert in calcium regulation, an issue that is important for calpain activation. A meeting on the biology of the calpains is highly-relevant to the NIH because calpains are involved in both normal and pathological processes. The activities of the house-keeping calpains are important for normal protein turnover and processing of cytoskeletal and membrane proteins in all tissues. Mutations in calpains 3 and 10 have associations with debilitating diseases (muscular dystrophy and diabetes). Three years have passed since the last meeting on calpain and substantial progress on the genomics, structure activation and roles in disease have been made. The proposed program will provide the forum by which the momentum in this field may be maintained.