Symposium: Tendon - Bridging the Gap, at the (SICB)Meeting, in Anaheim, California, on January 3 - 6, 2002.

肌腱是连接肌肉和骨骼的致密纤维组织。它扮演着许多生物力学的角色，结构复杂，如果损坏几乎不可能修复。本次研讨会将解决目前肌腱生物学研究的一个基本缺陷。器官生物学家对肌腱生物学的临床、发育或分子方面几乎没有认识，而生物医学研究人员在很大程度上不知道肌腱在脊椎动物中的比较生理学、进化模式和不同作用。研讨会的目标是汇集来自各种应用和基础研究领域的研究人员，以综合我们对肌腱的了解的现状。与会者还将指出未来研究的新的和创新的方向。演讲者将涵盖广泛的规模，从肌腱组织的分子生物学，通过在细胞水平上的模式，组织与肌肉和骨骼的相互作用，肌腱在整个生物体中的许多作用。除了作为有史以来致力于肌腱生物学的第一卷的基础，本次研讨会将促进肌腱研究人员在分子发育生物学，生物化学，功能形态学和生物医学等广泛领域之间的协同作用。

Tendon is a dense, fibrous tissue that connects muscle to bone. It plays a host of biomechanical roles, is architecturally complex, and virtually impossible to repair if damaged. This symposium will address a fundamental shortcoming of current research into the biology of tendon. Organismic biologists have little or no appreciation for clinical, developmental, or molecular aspects of tendon biology, while biomedical researchers are largely unaware of the comparative physiology, evolutionary patterns, and diverse roles of tendon in vertebrates. The goal of the symposium is to bring together researchers from a variety of applied and basic research areas to synthesize the current state of our knowledge of tendon. Participants will also point out new and innovative directions for future research. Speakers will cover a broad range of scale, from the molecular biology of tendon organization, through patterning at the cellular level, and tissue interactions with muscle and bone, to the many roles of tendon in the whole organism. In addition to serving as the basis for the first volume ever devoted to the biology of tendon, this symposium will foster a synergy between tendon researchers in such wide-ranging fields as molecular developmental biology, biochemistry, functional morphology, and biomedicine.