We propose to hold a conference titled """"""""The p53 Workshop"""""""" at Princeton University on June 21-25 1991. Because dormitories and University food services will be used to house and feed individuals over the four days of the meeting, the registration fees for room and board are not expensive ($159.00 per person). The goals of this meeting are: (1) To bring together all of the people working in the p53 field. This is needed because a large number of new scientists have entered the field in the last two years in response to the central role that p53 mutations appear to play in human cancer. (2) To permit the presentation of new experiments that result from a radical change in the interpretation of p53 gene function (i.e. a tumor suppressor gene) over the past two years. There is a critical need for the field to come together and formulate a new synthesis based upon new experiments. (3) To provide a forum to standardize nomenclature in a rapidly changing area of science. (4) To bring together the basic science and clinical findings in one meeting. (5) To provide a single meeting focused on p53. The last such meeting was in 1987 in Paris and no other meeting meets this need. (6) To compare and contrast other tumor suppressor genes such as retinoblastoma or oncogenes to p53 known functions. Special sessions are proposed to accomplish this so as to look for comparative classes of gene products. (7) Finally, to hold a meeting to respond to the new central importance of p53 genetic changes and the new interpretation of these data. Two years ago, the way in which the oncogene-tumor suppressor gene field viewed and understood p53 changed. In the interim, new experiments and hypotheses were tested to confirm or reject these ideas. This meeting presents a forum to review the tests of these new concepts.
