4th NIH Roadmap Meeting on Membrane Protein Structures and Complexes

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案请求资金支持第四届NIH路线图膜蛋白结构和技术会议。美国国立卫生研究院路线图倡议的创建是为了在短期内关注生物医学重要性的至关重要的、变革性的、高影响力的、具有战略重要性的领域。由于膜蛋白在许多细胞和生理过程中起着至关重要的作用，并且难以表达、溶解和纯化，因此膜蛋白的生产被认为是了解其结构和功能的严重障碍，并被选为顶级路线图倡议之一。该计划目前由美国国立卫生研究院通过美国国立卫生研究院共同基金提供支持。结构生物学路线图计划的第一阶段侧重于创建膜蛋白生产创新中心。2004年成立了两个中心，每个中心有8个pi，一个在加州大学旧金山分校（UCSF），另一个在斯克里普斯研究所（TSRI）。由于可能产生和共享潜在的变革性信息，NIH工作人员最初决定，各中心之间应该每年举行一次中心间会议。第一次中心间会议于2006年5月在加州大学旧金山分校由罗伯特·斯特劳德主持。从那时起，美国国立卫生研究院共同基金膜蛋白的重点已经扩大。迄今为止，通过这一机制已提供了41笔赠款。2006年的会议之后又举行了三次会议，所有路线图奖获得者都参与了会议，分别由TSRI的Ray Stevens（2007年11月）、UCSF的Robert Stroud（2009年3月）和LaJolla Shores的Ray Stevens（2010年11月）轮流主持。这些NIH路线图膜蛋白结构和技术会议成为在一个快速发展领域的关键阶段交换膜蛋白技术的主要论坛。新的膜蛋白结构家族通过该程序出现。2010年，该会议变得非常受欢迎，与会人数也受到了限制。第四次会议由Robert Stroud主持，计划于2012年11月28日至30日在旧金山的威斯汀市场街酒店举行，11月27日在加州大学旧金山分校举行研讨会。这个场地可以容纳250名与会者，并提供会议设施，包括演讲和海报展示，以及相邻空间的早餐、午餐和咖啡休息时间，以鼓励在休息期间进行讨论和交谈。会议的长度也从1天半延长到2天半，以允许更多的参与者参加和出席。会议将为膜蛋白生物学家、RFA膜蛋白生产和结构测定资助的所有项目的成员以及由蛋白质结构倡议资助的9个膜蛋白中心的成员提供一个独特的机会来讨论他们项目的现状。会议也将向其他NIH资助的研究人员开放，供他们参加并对该计划进行抽象考虑。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests funds to support the 4th NIH Roadmap Membrane Protein Structure and Technologies Conference. The NIH Roadmap Initiative was created to focus short term on critically important, transformative, high impact, an strategically important areas of biomedical importance. Since membrane proteins play such a critical role in so many cellular and physiological processes and are so difficult to express, solubilize and purify, the production of membrane proteins was identified as a serious roadblock to understanding their structure and function and chosen as one of the top Roadmap Initiatives. This initiative is currently funded by NIH-wide support via the NIH Common Fund. The first phase of the Structural Biology Roadmap Initiative focused on creating Centers for Innovation in Membrane Protein Production. Two Centers, each with ~8 PIs, one at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and the other at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), were funded and established in 2004. Because of the potentially transformative information that could be generated and shared, NIH staff initially decided that there should be an annual inter-Center meeting between the Centers. The first Inter- Center meeting was hosted by Robert Stroud at UCSF in May, 2006. Since then the NIH Common Fund membrane protein focus has been expanded. To date, 41 grants have been funded through this mechanism. The 2006 meeting was followed by 3 meetings with all Roadmap awardees contributing, hosted alternately by Ray Stevens at TSRI (11/2007) by Robert Stroud at UCSF (3/2009) and by Ray Stevens at LaJolla Shores (11/2010). These NIH Roadmap Membrane Protein Structure and Technologies Conferences became the primary forum for exchanging technologies for membrane proteins in a critical phase of a rapidly developing field. New families of membrane protein structures emerged through the program. The conference became extremely popular and numbers of attendees had to be limited in 2010. The 4th conference, hosted by Robert Stroud, is planned for November 28-30, 2012 at the Westin Market Street Hotel in San Francisco with workshops at UCSF on November 27th. This venue allows expansion of the number of participants to 250 attendees, and provides conference facilities where talks and poster presentations, as well as breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks are in adjacent spaces to encourage discussion and conversation during breaks. The length of the meeting is also extended from 1 1/2 days to 2 1/2 days to allow more participants to attend and present. The meeting will provide a unique opportunity for membrane protein biologists, members of all the projects funded through the RFA Membrane Protein Production and Structure Determination and members of the 9 Membrane Protein Centers funded by the Protein Structure initiative to discuss the current status of their projects. The meeting will also be open to other NIH funded researchers for attendance and abstract consideration for the program. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This proposal requests funds to support the 4th NIH Roadmap/Common Fund Membrane Protein Structure and Technologies Conference planned for November 28-30, 2012 in San Francisco. The length of the conference has been extended and the number of attendees has been expanded to accommodate all membrane protein researchers funded by the NIH Common Fund and Protein Structure Initiative and to open the meeting to other NIH funded PIs. Presentation and discussion will deal with progress as well as barriers to progress that could transform membrane protein structure determination.