FASEB SRC on Lipid Droplets on the Move from Health to Disease

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Project Summary The 6th FASEB Summer Research Conference on Lipid Droplets, entitled “Lipid Droplets on the Move from Health to Disease,” will focus on the rapidly developing field of lipid droplet biology. Lipid droplets are dynamic cellular organelles that play key roles in energy metabolism. Lipid droplet accumulation and dysfunction are hallmarks of metabolic diseases, including obesity, lipodystrophy, insulin resistance, diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular disease. Lipid droplets are increasingly being studied in the contexts of cancer metabolism, neurodegeneration and immunity as well. The increasing prevalence of metabolic disorders throughout the world lends increased urgency to encouraging research into fundamental aspects of how lipid droplets form, grow, move, mature, and degrade and how lipid droplets influence cell, tissue and organismal physiology and contribute to disease. Understanding of these concepts is necessary for the rationale design appropriate new therapeutic strategies. The conference will be held from June 24-29, 2018 at the Steamboat Grand Resort in Steamboat Springs, CO. The format includes an opening night keynote address by Lewis Cantley, eight sessions of talks by invited speakers, as well as short talks by trainees and early career investigators selected from submitted abstracts, four poster sessions, a Career Workshop on career design and balance, and a Meet the Experts session on advanced imaging microscopy. The meeting format will encourage and facilitate interactions between trainees, early career investigators and established investigators. The scientific sessions cover the full breadth of lipid-droplet biology, from biophysical, biochemical, and cellular topics to physiology and disease. Talks from internationally renowned researchers will span basic to clinical research and describe diverse approaches (biophysics, genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, physiology) and models (mice, humans, cultured cells, flies, yeast). This meeting continues to represent THE major international meeting dedicated exclusively to lipid droplets and remains a unique forum for researchers to exchange ideas and share breaking results in this dynamic and timely field. A central aim of this conference is training and encouraging the next generation of scientists. This application requests funding to support the participation of 14 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and early career investigators, including women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities, who will be chosen from submitted abstracts judged as superior. The intimate conference format, the secluded conference site, and the many opportunities for informal interactions between participants, planned and unplanned, will provide young investigators opportunities to present their work, to obtain feedback from leaders in the field, and to get career advice.