Th program """"""""Structural Analysis of Membrane Proteins: Realizing The Mitochondria's Potential"""""""" reunites the fundamental and classical principles of modern Bioenergetics with the atomic structures of the proteins that mediate the processes. This full-day program will be offered by the Bioenergetics Subgroup of the Biophysical Society on Saturday, February 12, 2000, at the New Orleans Convention Center in New Orleans, LA at the Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society.. While the Bioenergetics Subgroup is comprised of approximately 110 registered members, our annual Subgroup symposia attracts approximately 300-500 participants to both the morning and afternoon sessions. The Bioenergetics Subgroup Symposia has become increasingly attractive to participants with a wide range of scientific interests. The unique scheduling of the Subgroup meetings a day prior to the formal Biophysical Society Program offers meeting attendees the opportunity to participate fully in the organized program. The program described in this application marks the first time that two areas of research have been integrated with the objective of provoking comparison between membrane proteins whose structures have been determined and transmembrane proteins structures are being eagerly pursued. The morning session is dedicated to the process of electron transport (E. Berry, Chair) and is focused upon cytochrome bc1 and bc6 complexes, multi-subunit membrane proteins whose three-dimensional structures have been solved by crystallization and X-ray diffraction. The afternoon session will explore metabolite transport through structural and functional studies of mitochondrial transporters (R. Kaplan, Chair), a family of membrane proteins that represent model systems for passive transport, yet have resisted crystallization. The round-table discussion (Sir John Walker, Chair) is an essential feature of this program and will be composed of platform speakers from the two sessions. The goal of the round-table is to discuss 1) the major concepts of protein structure and folding using the solved structures as a conceptual scaffold and 2) the practical application of these global lessons that have been gleaned about protein structure towards protein purification, crystallization, and structural modeling.
