These funds support participation of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and young investigators at the International Conference on Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry (ICCPB 2011), to be held in Nagoya, Japan. Participants will build world-wide connections and gain cross-cultural exposure to institutions interested in global environmental effects on animals. Advances in understanding how animals adapt to environmental changes will support goals of safeguarding biodiversity at all levels. Funds will support individuals who have demonstrated exceptional aptitude and potential for advancing the field of epithelial fluid and solute dynamics and its regulation. A select group of individuals will present talks in a symposium focusing on concepts essential to understanding the role of epithelia in water and solute balance this balance has an overarching role in maintaining all life's basic functions. Epithelia are found in all organs, and exist as sheets of cells, assembled together by precisely arranged junctional proteins that lie between cells. Notably, the dynamics of water and solute flows through cells of the epithelial sheet are highly integrated with flows through junctions of the epithelial sheet, in a regulated, but poorly understood fashion. The symposium speakers will stress the importance of how and why cell-to-cell contact and plasticity of these systems are fundamental to appropriate tissue water and solute dynamics for all vertebrates. Other individuals supported by this grant will have the opportunity to present their research findings, face-to-face in poster sessions, with scientists from nearly every continent who work in widely diverse biological fields. A major goal will be to identify and select women and individuals of underrepresented ethnic minority background as recipients of these travel funds. Funding for student and trainee initiatives at ICCPB 2011 will play a key role in attracting and retaining the brightest and best-trained comparative physiologists.
Meeting: Symposium – Adaptations for Salt and Water Balance in Vertebrates International Conference on Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry Nagoya, Japan May 31- June 5, 2011 The chief goal of this proposal was to obtain travel funds that would enable graduate students, post-doctoral scientists, and young investigators to participate in the International Conference on Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry, which was held in Nagoya, Japan, May 31- June 5, 2011 (ICCPB 2011). A portion of the funds was earmarked towards defraying the travel costs and registration fees of young investigators who were invited to participate in the symposium, "Adaptations for Salt and Water Balance in Vertebrates". Other recipients of the travel funds presented their own research related to the field of fluid and solute dynamics. The symposium, "Adaptations for Salt and Water Balance in Vertebrates", presented methodologies and concepts that are currently advancing the field of epithelial solute and water transport in significant ways. Three talks presented in the symposium are scheduled to be published in the summer of 2012 in an international journal. The goals of the conference were to facilitate participants’ ability to make new connections and to develop on-going commitments with their international colleagues. As their careers develop, early-stage investigators will increasingly face issues associated with research objectives that involve international dialog. In order to accomplish these objectives the research community needs to interact face to face, build personal relationships, and thereby promote dialogue. This travel grant provided funds that enabled four young investigators to participate in these functions.
