Funds are requested to support an American Society for cell Biology Summer Conference on """"""""Algal Experimental Systems in Cell Biological Research"""""""" in June, 1988 at the Airlie House near Warrenton, VA. The Conference is prompted by the fact that there seems to be no single national meeting which attracts any significant proportion of those experimental cell biologists who work on fundamental biological processes using photosynthetic protistan organisms (i.e. Algae). These organisms offer many experimental advantages, but because they are less familiar experimental systems, the advantages they afford are not so well recognized by students, other researchers, and even granting agencies. A basic advantage in addition to the fact that these organisms are amenable to laboratory culturing and experimentation, is that the protistan organisms include a vast array of evolutionarily diverse and unrelated organisms. Thus one can readily examine the variation generated by evolution in a particular cell biological process or phenomenon. There will be six platform sessions spread over three and one half days in a meeting designed to accommodate 150 people. The principal meeting topics include: (1) Organization of Algal Cells, (2) Cellular Morphogenesis and Differentiation (3) How Cells Perceive and Interact with the Environment. Workshops, demonstrations and discussions on subjects supplementing the morning papers will be featured in the afternoons. As we spoke with people about such a meeting, we found that the researchers themselves, lacking a common society or meeting place, suffer from an unnecessary isolation. Bringing researchers together will not only emphasize their work to the scientific community at large, but permit valuable exchange of ideas and technology.
