(from the application): Funds are requested to defray expenses for travel and room and board incurred by speakers from the United States who will participate in the 2001 Gordon Research Conference on Cell Death, to be held at The Queens College, Oxford, England from July 15, 2001 to July 20, 2001. The Gordon Research Conference on Cell Death was first held in 1995 in response to the unprecedented explosion of research interest and research in this field. Both the inaugural cell death conference, and those that followed in 1997 and. 1999, were designed to bring together researchers from a wide variety of specialties, using a variety of model systems to identify the common cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in cell death, and to identify the most critical issues that need to be addressed in this field. Since 1999, there have been tremendous advances in our knowledge of how apoptosis is regulated and implemented. The Gordon Conference on Cell Death has evolved into one of the """"""""Big Four"""""""" apoptosis meetings held every two years (the others in 2001 will be the Keystone Conference, the AACR Special Conference and the Cold Spring Harbor Conference). The Gordon Conference stands out as a forum for cutting edge advances presented in an environment allowing maximum interaction with leaders in the field. Some of the topics to be covered at this meeting include: lessons from model systems, in particular those in which the genome has been fully sequenced (yeasts, C. elegans and Drosophila); genetic analysis in mice particularly through gene deletion; biochemistry of caspase activation; function of Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins; role of apoptosis in disease (including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and ischemic disease); and emerging therapeutics, such as those based on caspase inhibitors.
