This Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Organellar Channels and Transporters, with its inaugural meeting scheduled for June, 2015, is one of the newest of over 170 annual conferences organized by the GRC, an organization known world-wide because of the high-quality, cutting-edge nature of its conferences. This new GRC meeting will be dedicated to ion channels and transporters of intracellular organelles, including mitochondria, endosomes, lysosomes, vacuoles, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), nucleus, and chloroplasts; in both animals and plants. The meeting will bring together about 150 scientists of many types, with different technical expertise and scientific backgrounds. Topics of the conference will be discussed in 8 separate platform sessions, and will include electrophysiology, molecular identification, proteomics, regulation, interaction partner, targeting pharmacology, structure, and physiology. A special session will focus on how dysfunctional ion/metabolite transport in organelles leads to common and rare human diseases, and how the activity of organellar channels can be manipulated to treat them. The complete program will come at an exciting time within this field, and will welcome the expanding group of scientists who are becoming interested in intracellular channels and transporters as they relate to basic science and applied biology. Significance: In recent years, rapid progress has been made in the field of intracellular channels/transporters due to technical advances in electrophysiology (e.g. patch clamping of endosomes, lysosomes, and mitochondria has been achieved) and molecular biology (e.g. in vitro expression of ion channels and organelle proteomics). For example, the long-sought mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) has now been molecularly identified and functionally characterized. However, many new channels and transporters in Golgi, ER, autophagosomes, melanosomes, plant vacuoles, and the nucleus remain to be discovered. In addition, questions remain open related to trafficking, regulation, and physiological roles of intracellular channels and transporters. Importantly, techniques developed to study one organelle could provide ideas and methods to study other organelles. Hence, it is highly significant to organize a new meeting to bring scientists working on intracellular channels/transporters in different organelles.
The Gordon Research Conference on Organellar Channels and Transporters will bring together leading scientists working on different aspects of intracellular channels and transporters, including electrophysiology, molecular identification, proteomics, regulation, targeting, pharmacology, and structure along with graduate students and junior investigators who represent the future generation of researchers with interest in organellar channels and transporters. The scientific presentations, discussions and workshops during this conference will significantly contribute to advancing our understanding of intracellular channels and transporters in health and disease, and the future development of therapeutic approaches for many rare diseases, including lysosomal and mitochondrial diseases.
