FASEB SRC 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 2013 entitled "Biology of Calpains in Health and Disease". This is the sixth such meeting focusing on calpains and it will be held in Saxton Rivers, Vermont. Funds are being requested from six different NIH institutes, with NINDS as the primary and NCI, NHLBI, NIA, NIDDK, and NIAMS as secondary assignments. Funds obtained from these institutes will provide partial support for the meeting. The meeting 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) Bioinformatics of Calpain Substrates, 2) Calpains and Cancer, 3) Measuring Calpain Activation 3) Calpains in Cell Death Pathways 4) Calpains in Diabetes, 5) Calpains in Neurodegeneration and Brain Injury 6) Calpains in Cardiovascular Disease 7) Calpain inhibitors as therapeutics, and 8) Calpains in Muscle. Dr. Peter Davies will be the keynote speaker. Dr. Davies has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the structure of calpain as well as the mechanism of action of the endogenous calpain inhibitor, calpastatin. 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 or in calpain substrates are associated with disease and lethality. Disorders discussed at the this meeting will include aging, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, atrial fibrillation, cardiac ischemic injury, cerebral ischemia, cardiac hypertrophy, diabetes, Machado-Joseph disease, malaria, muscular dystrophy, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and vascular remodeling. 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.