U.S.-Japan Seminar: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Membrane and Storage Lipids of Plants/December 1992/Kona, Hawaii

该奖项将支持10名美国科学家参加将于1992年12月14日至16日在夏威夷科纳举行的关于植物膜和储存脂的生物化学和分子生物学的美日研讨会。联合组织者是密歇根州立大学植物研究实验室的Christopher Somerville教授和日本冈崎国立基础生物学研究所调控生物学系的Norio Murata教授。这次研讨会将为美国和日本的主要学术和工业研究实验室以及四个欧洲国家的主要学术研究团体的代表提供一个论坛，以交流最新信息和探讨可能的合作。研讨会主题的意义在于，膜脂组成被认为是高等植物耐冷性的主要组成部分。此外，膳食植物油的成分对健康有显著影响，而非食品油的成分决定了这些油在广泛的非食品工业应用中的效用。植物分子生物学的最新进展为利用克隆基因对作物进行合理的基因改造，从而利用基因工程技术改变植物的油脂成分和耐寒性提供了可能性。由于大多数具有生物化学和分子生物学专长的研究小组都在美国和日本，他们在这次研讨会上与一些欧洲同事的会面应该是富有成果的。

This award will support the participation of ten U.S. scientists in a U.S.-Japan Seminar on Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Membrane and Storage Lipids of Plants, to be held December 14- 16, 1992 in Kona, Hawaii. The co-organizers are Professor Christopher Somerville, Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, and Professor Norio Murata, Department of Regulation Biology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan. This seminar will provide a forum for representatives of the major academic and industrial research laboratories in the United States and Japan, as well as major academic research groups in four European countries, to exchange up to date information and explore possible collaboration. The significance of the topic of the seminar lies in the fact that membrane lipid composition is thought to be a major component of chilling tolerance in higher plants. In addition, the composition of dietary vegetable oils has significant health effects and the composition of non-food oils determines the utility of the oils for a wide range of non-food industrial applications. Recent advances in plant molecular biology have raised the possibility of using genetic engineering techniques to modify oil composition and the cold tolerance of plants by rational genetic modification of crop species using cloned genes. Since most of the research groups with expertise in both biochemistry and molecular biology are in the United States and Japan, their meeting in this seminar along with some of their European colleagues should prove fruitful.