This proposal requests support for a symposium entitled "Marine Invertebrate Allorecognition and the Evolution of Immunity" which will be held at the annual meeting of the American Society of Zoologists in San Francisco on December 27-30, 1988. The symposium will bring together whole-animal biologists who study self-recognition in invertebrates with molecular biologists whose technological approaches to vertebrate self recognition are applicable to invertebrate systems. The invited speakers, who are leaders in their respective fields, will discuss basic questions regarding the evolution of vertebrate adaptive immunity using the phylogenetic perspectives that the invertebrate allorecognition systems offer. There are two objectives for this meeting: (1) to formulate a consensus, using the workshop format, as to which biological questions are common to all our research efforts, and (2) to facilitate discussion of invertebrate models in the context and language of molecular biology and protein chemistry. This symposium should provide important new perspectives on self- recognition and self-defense in marine invertebrates. Enhancement of basic knowledge in this area is important not only for its intrinsic interest, but because, in the long term, it may provide insights into the practical problems of maintaining the diversity of marine organisms inhabiting the oceans. In addition, the many potential uses of marine invertebrate systems in biotechnology has also just begun to be appreciated. The area represented in this symposium represents an important part of the basic science foundation for these applications.
