This award supports a research workshop organized jointly by Marina Ramirez-Alvarado (Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN USA) and Alejandro Fernandez Velasco (Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico). The main objectives of this symposium are: to provide a forum for a multidisciplinary discussion on protein folding, misfolding and design; to use this forum to introduce graduate students and young researchers to these research topics; to promote interactions between senior and young researchers in these fields from the two countries; and to identify potential collaborations among the participants. The workshop will be held at UNAM, Mexico City, March 18-21, 2011. The Mexican science agency CONACYT will support the Mexican participants.
The workshop will include research presentations and workshop discussions on the following topics: theoretical models of protein folding, experimental advances in protein folding, molecular mechanisms of protein misfolding, and recent advances and limitations of protein design. Better understanding of protein folding and misfolding is crucial to the study of the physiological activity of proteins. This workshop will provide an opportunity for closer interactions among senior researchers from the US, including Latin American researchers that have established their academic careers in the US, and investigators from Latin America and Mexico. Collaborations arising from this meeting will help to consolidate research networks throughout the continent. Moreover, this award provides fellowships for US students to participate in this educational opportunity. The interactions between students and the more senior researchers will certainly be fruitful, and the experience will encourage students to continue graduate and postdoctoral studies in the field. In the selection of invited speakers, proper attention has been paid to the inclusion of women and minority faculty members. Similar efforts are being made in the selection of student participants.
Marina Ramírez-Alvarado Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 2nd US-Mexico Workshop in Biological Chemistry: Protein Folding, Misfolding and Design. Torre de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico. Participant Individuals: Other (s) -- specify: Jonathan King (MIT) Alejandro Fernández Velasco -UNAM Liliana Quintanar- Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados (Cinvestav) Edgar Vázquez Contreras-Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) The 2nd USA-Mexico Workshop in Biological Chemistry: Protein Folding, Misfolding and Design was held in Mexico City, in March 18-21, 2011, at the Torre de Ingenieria in the main UNAM campus. (Please note that this meeting was rescheduled from the date mentioned in the original grant application.) The attached file includes the program, a list of all the participants, and the abstracts of poster session. This workshop gathered a number of experts with different approaches to the study of protein folding, misfolding and design from the Americas, including 10 speakers from the US, one from Brazil, and 6 from Mexico (we had two last minute cancelations due to personal issues from two speakers, two of the co-organizers gave talks instead). Most speakers gave a workshop talk during the first days of the workshop and a research talk during the last day of the workshop in a joint session with the National Conference on Proteins. This meeting format allowed an in-depth presentation of the methods to be applied in the research talk that followed. This format was designed with the large number of graduate student attendees in mind, but turned out to be quite popular among the presenters as well, as the range of methods used was quite broad. Each student participant presented a poster of their own research. The grant was awarded (and used) to support travel and accommodations for all participants from US Universities, including speakers and graduate students. Findings: The category of findings is not really applicable, as the grant was to support an educational workshop. As such, it did not produce publishable research results, but it was a very successful event. A large number of exciting findings were communicated, lively discussions were held both inside and outside the conference room, and we judged it to have been very successful in attaining its educational and cross-pollination goals. The general reaction of all participants was that the academic program was excellent and the workshop was of the highest level. All participants were very enthusiastic and expressed their interest in the continuity of this kind of workshop with an emphasis in protein folding. In fact, Profs. Sean Decatur (Oberlin College), Silvia Cavagnero (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Julio Fernandez (Columbia University), Joel Ireta (UAM) and Gloria Saab (UNAM) expressed interest in participating as workshop co-organizers for the next USA-Mexico workshop in Biological Chemistry. It would be great if the NSF and CONACYT can continue with these joint efforts to support workshops like this one, which provide a unique opportunity for the interaction of US and Mexican scientists and students, facilitate potential collaborations and help to consolidate specific research topics in the region. Training and Development: As a workshop designed to expand the horizons of graduate students as well as junior and senior faculty it functioned very well. Hopefully the material learned at this meeting will be internalized and used in future research.
