This application is for partial funding of the 2001 FASEB Summer Conference on """"""""Nuclear Structure and Cancer"""""""" to be held on August 11-16 at the Vermont Academy in Saxtons River, Vermont. The conference is under the auspices of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). There will be 9 oral sessions, each including short presentations by young investigators. There will be a 2 poster sessions, each followed by round table discussions. This conference will provide a forum to evaluate the fundamental regulatory and clinical implications of modified organization of nucleic acids and regulatory proteins that control gene replication and expression in nuclei of tumor cells. The importance of tumor-related changes in nuclear morphology and the subnuclear organization or regulatory factors is becoming increasingly recognized. However, this will be the first meeting that will focus on perturbations of nuclear structure-gene expression interrelationships that are linked to cancer. There is a requirement for a conference that is dedicated to examining the structural and functional properties of cells that are compromised with the onset and progression of cancer. Cause and effect relationships between nuclear morphology and gene replication as well as gene expression will be systematically explored. There will be a concerted effort to critically evaluated findings that interface nuclear structure and function. Consideration will be given to contributions from cellular, biochemical, genetic, and molecular approaches. The meeting will address experimental strategies and high resolution methodologies for defining alterations in gene replication and expression that are associated with cancer from the perspective of the organization of nucleic acids and regulatory proteins within nuclei.
