Funds are requested for partial support to convene an international meeting on """"""""Frontiers in Myogenesis"""""""" to be held April 27- May 2, 2006 at Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia. This meeting has been held every three years for two decades, initially as a Keystone Symposium and independently since 2000. The conference focuses on molecular signals and mechanisms that induce and regulate myogenesis, nerve-muscle interactions, and human diseases of skeletal muscle. This meeting typically attracts approximately 300 participants from all over the world. This conference is unique in the muscle biology community because of its mission to bring together the world's experts in fundamental science of muscle developmental and molecular biology to exchange their latest findings and spearhead new directions for future advances in diagnosis, prevention and therapy of muscle diseases in human. Most of the 36 invited speakers have already accepted the invitation to present their most exciting findings in the following 9 plenary sessions: Somitogenesis and myogenesis in the embryo, Regulation of myofiber formation, Signal transduction, Gene regulatory mechanisms in myogenesis, Patterning of muscle, Muscle stem cells and satellite cells, Muscle diseases, Nerve-muscle interactions, and Regulation of muscle mass. An additional 36 speakers will be chosen from submitted abstracts for short talks, allowing the inclusion of the latest results and providing an opportunity for postdoctoral fellows and graduate students to address a large audience, as priority will be given to junior investigators. Three evening poster sessions will also take place. New this year are two afternoon technology workshops devoted to state-of-the-art technologies and moderated by experts in the field. We expect the major advances in genomics, cellular and molecular biology that took place since the last conference in 2003 will make this upcoming meeting in Georgia an essential gathering for workers in both basic muscle development and disease to learn from each other and therefore, stimulate a cross fertilization of ideas and further advances. ? ? ? ?
