In areas as diverse cancer, aging, neurological diseases, microbial drug resistance, ecotoxicology, and evolution, there is a growing awareness that the properties of metals which make them effective catalysts also make them central to the cells' ability to sense redox changes. There have been rapid advances in the molecular biology of metals in regulation and in sensory transduction. Concomitantly, there has been increasing comprehension of the complexities of oxygen homeostasis, including stress responses, metabolism of toxic oxygen species, and regulation of the balance between aerobiosis and anaerobiosis. Knowledge of the relationship of intracellular metal and oxygen transactions in normal and disease states will enable us to design more effective therapeutic interventions. The major goal of this meeting is to foster interactions between those using either physical or molecular biological approaches to study metal and/or redox regulation of gene expression. No previous meeting (nor any planned in the next year) explicitly and extensively combines the topics of normal and stress-related metal- and oxygen-regulated gene expression. In particular this meeting would uniquely attract molecular geneticists, biochemists, biophysists and chemical spectroscopists. Many of these individuals work on topics of common interest without knowing of each others' results because of the distances between disciplines. The meeting will be designed to bridge these distances and encourage communication among researchers in these presently distinct, but rapidly converging areas of research. Since new research endeavors typically grow from the interfaces of older disciplines, this intermingling of people and ideas will give rise to new insights in participants from both areas and will foster collaborations that will synergistically thrust both areas forward rapidly. All speakers will also be encouraged to include consideration of any intrinsic differences between metal/redox regulation of gene expression and regulation by other kinds of compounds; i.e. in what ways, precisely, are the concepts """"""""redox regulation"""""""" and """"""""metalloregulation"""""""" mechanistically unique and useful distinctions. The rapidity with which new regulatory roles are being uncovered in biology both for metals and for reactive oxygen species and the corresponding acceleration in techniques available for the analysis of metal chemistry in bio-organic systems warrants a meeting where the leading practitioners of both kinds of science can share information, ideas, and techniques.
