The 7th Gordon Conference on Pulmonary Biology is scheduled to occur from July 21-25, 1986, Plymouth State College, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. This Conference has covered a variety of pulmonary biology topics in the past, such as pulmonary secretion and lung response to injury with great success. The topic for the 1986 Conference is Cellular Mechanisms in Pulmonary Inflammation. This theme is of great current interest to both the lung, and in general cell biology, and was the overwhelming choice of the attendees at the 1984 Conference. The Conference in 1986 will revolve around five general topics: Emigration of inflammatory cells into the pulmonary interstitium (interactions with the endothelium, and migration through the basement membrane): Migration of inflammatory cells through the epithelial barriers (effects on occluding junctions): Secretory events in inflammatory cells and cells of the lung in response to inflammatory stimuli: Lung cell proliferation in repair after injury, and Lung cell differentiation in repair after injury. Particular emphasis will be given to the response of the pulmonary cells to the inflammatory process, and especially on reversible (physiologic?) responses rather than on cell injury. The hypothesis to be explored in our Conference is that the inflammatory process represents the beneficial self-resolving response to injurious circumstances, and that it is important to understand these """"""""normal"""""""" changes in inflammation, before we can fully appreciate the role inflammatory processes play in chronic human pulmonary diseases, where responses do not appropriately resolve. Lectures are planned from those working in the lung, with isolated lung cells and with cells from different systems in order to synthesize some general questions and answers in relationship to cellular responses in inflammation.
