The purpose of this proposal is to generate funds to support travel, registration and lodging for participants in the 8th Gordon Research Conference on Intermediate Filaments, which will be held August 8- 13, 2004 at Queen's College, Oxford, United Kingdom. Intermediate Filaments (IFs) are major components of the cytoskeleton and nucleoskeleton in higher eukaryotes. In the public draft of the human genome, there are >67 functional genes encoding IF-forming polypeptides. These genes are regulated in a cell-specific manner and are highly conserved in mammalian genomes. A general function of IFs is to endow cells and tissues with mechanical resilience to withstand various types of physical and non-physical stresses. Defects in IF proteins underlie a vast number of genetically determined disorders involving epithelia (e.g., skin, oral and eye blistering diseases; liver disorders), muscle (e.g., cardiomyopathies; muscular dystrophy), neural tissue (e.g., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Alexander's diseases), lipodystrophies, and premature aging sydromes. IF proteins fulfill other functions in a differentiation and context-dependent fashion, including promoting specific cytoarchitecture, tissue response to injury and other forms of stress, response to apoptotic signals, signaling, and nuclear architecture and gene expression. This Gordon Research Conference (GRC) represents the only regular meeting devoted to IF biology. It brings together participants of junior and senior rank from all over the world, who study IF proteins from functional, regulatory, structural, and disease-related perspectives. This GRC has traditionally fostered a free-flowing exchange of novel ideas, tools and reagents, and facilitated the establishment of productive collaborations. The Program for the 2004 edition of the Conference has been finalized and will have a major focus on the broad disease aspect of these proteins, their emerging role in cell signaling, the enlarging list of associated proteins they interact with, new structural findings, and potential novel approaches for therapy. The specific sessions that have been scheduled are: 1) Structure, Assembly and Biophysics of IFs; 2) Lamin Biology and Diseases; 3) IFs and Apoptosis; 4) Keratin Regulation and Diseases; 5) IFs, Stress and Signaling; 6) Neuronal IF Biology and Diseases; 7) IF Associated Proteins: from Biology to Disease; 8) What's Left of IFs that we need to know? 9) New Horizons in IF Studies.
