This application is for partial funding for the 2003 FASEB Summer Research Conference on """"""""Nuclear Structure and Cancer"""""""" to be held June 7-12, 2003 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 nine regular platform sessions, two workshops and two poster sessions. Young investigators will be encouraged to give short talks at the regular platform and workshop sessions by selection from the submitted abstracts. There will also be a special """"""""late breaking development"""""""" session in which participants will be selected to give short talks. 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 tumors cells. The study of tumor-related changes in nuclear morphology and the subnuclear organization of regulatory factors is gaining increased attention. With this in mind there is a need for a conference that is dedicated to examining the structural and functional properties of the interphase cell nucleus in cells that are compromised with the onset and progression of cancer. This is the only major meeting in the world that focuses on this specific topic. Correlations between nuclear morphology and gene replication and expression will be systematically explored. There will be a concerted effort to critically evaluate findings that interface between nuclear organization, genomic function and regulation. Consideration will be given to contributions from cellular, biochemical, genetic and molecular approaches and their integration into multidisciplinary approaches for understanding the connections among genomic organization, function and cancer. In so doing this meeting will address experimental strategies and high resolution state-of-the-art methodologies for defining in cancer cells alterations in nuclear architecture related to changes in gene replication, expression and regulation.
