2010 DNA Damage, Mutation, and Cancer

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Gordon Conference on DNA Damage, Mutation, and Cancer was initiated in 2000 by Professors Lawrence Loeb and Edward Loechler. The purpose of this new conference and the 2010 conference is to focus on the relationship between mutations and cancer. Cells sustain DNA damage from both endogenous and external sources and they have evolved elegant machinery to repair this damage. Deficient or aberrant repair results in mutations that can lead to cancer. The 2010 conference on DNA Damage, Mutation, and Cancer will present cutting edge research into biochemical, molecular, and cellular aspects of DNA repair, mutagenesis, and cancer. Topics that will be covered include chemistry and recognition of DNA damage, mechanisms of DNA repair, tolerance, and lesion bypass, conformational dynamics, epigenetics of DNA repair, mouse models of human cancer, transcriptional and translational mutagenesis, and the use of DNA repair as a target for cancer therapy. The invited speakers, who are at the forefront of their fields, come from a variety of disciplines including chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, and evolutionary biology. The conference will strongly encourage the presentation and discussion of unpublished results. We will also provide a platform for junior investigators to present short talks and these will be selected from the abstracts. We expect that the scientific exchange at the conference will impact cancer research in significant ways and result in establishing new multi-disciplinary collaborative efforts. The 2010 Gordon Conference on DNA Damage, Mutation, and Cancer will be held in Ventura Beach, California from March 21-26, 2010. Awarded funding support for the meeting is critically necessary in order to achieve the goals set forth for the conference. In this grant application, we are requesting funding for travel, registration, and accommodation expenses for speakers that will assist in offsetting the financial burden of participating in this meeting, especially for young investigators. Funding priorities will be for speakers who would otherwise be unable to participate in the meeting, junior investigator speakers, and to encourage the participation of women and minorities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Mutations are acquired by a variety of mechanisms, including errors made by DNA polymerases and other enzymes that act on DNA, and by inaccurate lesion bypass. Human cancer results from mutations in the genome and these mutations occur in key growth control genes, genes that function in genome maintenance, and regulatory regions of the genome. The focus of this multidisciplinary conference is to understand the mechanisms of mutagenesis through the presentation and in-depth discussion of topics that range from lesion structure to acquisition of mutations in mice. Therefore, this meeting will provide a forum for scientists from several different disciplines to engage in key discussions that are likely to lead to advances in our understanding of mutagenesis and human cancer. The meeting will also provide a forum in which students, postdoctoral fellows, and beginning investigators can share information with established scientists through formal scientific sessions and informal interactions. Both the scientific cross-fertilization and mentoring of junior investigators require external support for invited speaker travel, and to encourage the participation of junior investigators, women, and minorities.