Funding is requested to support the Gordon Research Conference on Cellular and Molecular Fungal Biology to be held from June 20 to June 25, 2004 at the Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire. The co-chairs for the conference are Dr. N. Louise Glass (Berkeley) and Dr. James W. Kronstad (British Columbia) and the vice co-chairs are Dr. Aaron P. Mitchell (Columbia) and Dr. Anne E. Osbourne (Sainsbury Laboratory). The conference (formerly Cellular and Molecular Mycology) provides a forum for presentation of the latest advances in fungal research with a particular emphasis on filamentous and pathogenic fungi. Participants include leading international scientists from academia and industry as well as graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. These scientists gather at Holderness School, an outstanding venue for scientific interaction, to present the latest research findings and to discuss future research directions. The goal of the conference is to foster scientific exchange, collaboration and the development of new research opportunities. This is particularly important in fungal biology because of the large number of different species currently being studied and the explosion of genomic resources that have recently become available. This meeting is unique because it brings together scientists from diverse fields that may not normally interact in a single scientific venue. For example, the program includes researchers working on unicellular yeasts and their relatives as well as filamentous fungal researchers. In addition, it includes scientists that work on fungal plant pathogens and well as human pathogens. Work in the bacterial field has shown common mechanisms associated with pathogenesis among plant and human bacterial pathogens; aspects required for pathogenesis are also thought to be conserved among human and plant fungal pathogens. The scientific program will include the following topics: evolution and genomics, metabolism and gene regulation, development, epigenetics, pathogenesis and cell biology and signal transduction. In addition, late-breaking scientific discoveries will be included in every session through oral presentations selected from submitted poster abstracts. In summary, the conference provides a unique opportunity to examine the breadth of fungal biology in a small meeting format that encourages in-depth discussion among the attendees.
