Financial support is being sought to help defray the travel costs of foreign speakers for the Symposium, Copper Coordination Chemistry: Bioinorganic Perspectives, to be held August 4-7, 1992, at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This interdisciplinary meeting will bring together scientists from a variety of research backgrounds and interests, including inorganic and coordination chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology.
The aim will be to foster discussions, collaborations and future developments among researchers interested in the latest developments in biological aspects of copper chemistry, including the structure, spectroscopy and reactivity of complexes which have relevance to copper-redox and electron transfer processes, copper-dioxygen chemistry, copper ion/NOx chemistry, cofactors in copper metalloenzymes, nucleic acid oxidative cleavage or hydrolysis, copper-sulfur chemistry and biological copper transport and transfer (i.e., regulation). The impact of research related to these topics is potentially far-reaching, with expectations for advances in our understanding of biological electron transfer, dioxygen reduction and activation, the roles of enzyme bound metals, and copper homeostasis. Potential applications may be found in enviromnental chemistry (e.g. NOx pollutants), energy conservation, selective methods for oxidation of organic substrates, and molecular biology. As currently planned, the four-day conference will feature 34 invited lectures and contributed poster sessions providing ample opportunities for useful scientific discussions and interactions. The symposium is a sequel to the highly successful 1982 and 1984 SUNY Albany Copper Symposia, which attracted an international audience and were supported by the N.I.H. (in '82), industry and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany.
