The Gordon Research Conference on Autophagy in Stress, Development, and Disease will be held June 22-27, 2003 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and at biannual intervals thereafter. This is a new Gordon Research Conference and represents the first meeting ever to be held in the United States on autophagy. Autophagy is a cellular pathway involving the bulk degradation of long-lived proteins and organelles by autophagolysosomes, and has recently emerged as an exciting novel area of biomedical research. The regulation of autophagy plays an essential role in the cellular response to nutrient deprivation, in development, in normal physiologic processes such as aging, and in the host response to microbial infection; the deregulation of autophagy has also been implicated in diseases such as heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and most notably, cancer. Until recently, very little has been known about the genetics, biochemistry, and molecular cell biology of autophagy or about the precise role of autophagy in normal physiology and pathophysiology. However, there have been several major scientific advances in the past decade that are revolutionizing the field, including the identification of evolutionarily conserved genes that mediate autophagy, elucidation of the biochemical pathways of autophagy, and elucidation of the role of autophagy in normal physiology and disease pathophysiology. These recent advances have created a fertile scientific foundation that is likely to lead to an explosion of research in the next decade that will further elucidate the molecular mechanisms of autophagy and the role of autophagy in diverse biologic processes as well as identify important new targets for the treatment of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, heart disease, and infectious diseases. This meeting will bring together established leading international scientists as well as promising junior investigators who have expertise in diverse aspects of autophagy. The conference will focus on the biochemistry and genetics of autophagy, the role of autophagy in development, signaling pathways that regulate cell growth control and autophagy, the interrelationship between autophagy and apoptosis, and the role of autophagy in cancer and other disease pathologies. By creating a scientific forum for established and junior investigators to exchange ideas related to autophagy, it is anticipated that this meeting will make a landmark contribution to the development of this critically important, emerging area of biomedical research.
