Funds are requested to help support the 2001 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Tissue Repair and Regeneration. The meeting will be held from June 1-6, 2003, at the Ciocco Conference Center in Barga, Italy. This conference follows five successful Gordon Conferences on Wound Repair. Recognizing the similarities of the healing process in various tissues and organs, such as skin, lung, intestine, kidney, muscle, and bone, the participants of the 1999 Wound Repair meeting have uniformly agreed to rename the conference. Therefore, continuing from the 2001 meeting, a unifying goal of the 2003 meeting will be to highlight the commonality of repair processes among tissues and the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms. Furthermore, links between repair, regeneration, development, and disease will be addressed. Nine sessions are planned which include (1) Epithelial/Epidermal Repair (2) Mechanisms of Cell Migration (3) Role of Inflammation in Repair Processes, (4) Tissue Regeneration, (5) Cytokines: Cell-cell Signaling in Repair, (6) Scarring and Fibrosis, (7) Connective Tissue Repair, (8) Intervention: Making Things Better, and (9) a plenary lecture on the similarity between repair and defense mechanisms between higher plants and mammals. Besides the presentations of the invited speakers, shorter presentations will be given by other participants. These additional talks will be chosen by the Organizing Committee early in 2003 based on submitted abstracts. The meeting will also include four poster sessions. Each session will be chaired by investigators who are renown for work on the mechanisms of repair and regeneration. The session speakers will emphasize specific, unpublished results directly related to repair and regeneration and will represent a wide range of interests. With this format, they will bring together outstanding scientists from different research areas who would otherwise not have the opportunity to meet at the same scientific meetings. The combination of speakers and topics will significantly stimulate new ideas and collaborations in the field of tissue repair.
