This application is for support of the first international meeting focused solely upon the topic of cellular lipid transport and its relationship to human genetic diseases. The meeting will provide a forum for the latest research in this discipline, which is now rapidly expanding as a consequence of advances in the biochemistry, genetics and genomics of lipid transport in multiple eukaryotes. The meeting will convene from Oct 29-Nov 2, 2008; in Canmore, AB, Canada. The participants in the meeting will be leading scientists whose focus is upon lipid transport processes within cells, and the relationship of these processes to cellular pathology and human diseases. In addition to invited speakers, attendees will include senior scientists with active research programs in the topic areas of the conference, and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from these laboratories. Women and minority scientists are encouraged to participate in this meeting and 25% of the invited speakers are women. There will be ample opportunities for presentation of work by attendees who are not invited speakers, during poster sessions, and short oral presentations, which are mixed with invited speaker presentations. The objectives of the meeting are to publicize the latest advances in the topics of cellular lipid transport and critically discuss how disease processes result from molecular defects. The topics to be addressed include: 1) ABC transporters and their roles in eye, lung and liver disease in humans and mice, and the biosynthesis of endotoxins in prokaryotes; 2) P-type ATPases and their role in fundamental membrane assembly processes of eukaryotes, and the development of intrahepatic cholestasis in humans; 3) the importance of lipid recognition proteins in cell growth and development and production of steroid hormones; and 4) the role of Niemann Pick C family proteins in controlling lipid transport processes in the intestine and brain and their relationship to specific disease processes. 7. Project Narrative N/A ? ? ?
