An International Conference on Gap Junctions is planned for the Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California, from June 9th through June 13th, 1991. The primary goal of the conference is to promote interaction among investigators taking different approaches to the study of gap junctions. This meeting is especially timely because of recent discoveries in the molecular biology of gap junctions and the development of a number of expression systems, including paired Xenopus oocytes and a variety of transfected cells, in which tailored junctional proteins can be studied. There is also considerable ongoing work on the role of gap junctions in particular tissues, especially heart, lens, pancreas, liver and uterus and on the role of gap junctions in tumor formation. The conference will cover the following topics: Expression Systems and Molecular Biology of Gap Junctions; Electrophysiology, Regulation and Reconstitution; Role of Gap Junctions in Differentiated Tissues; Biochemistry and Immunology of Gap Junctions; and the Role of Gap Junctions in Development. There will be three poster sessions, and two discussion sessions. We have made an initial selection of 21 speakers, 15 of whom have been contacted and have agreed to participate. The organizing committee will ultimately select a total of 33 speakers based on submitted abstracts. This course of action was recommended during an organizational meeting at the previous gap junction meeting in Irsee as a means of insuring that the most up to date possible material is presented at the meeting. A preliminary announcement of the meeting, expected to reach about 400 investigators interested in gap junctions, has been sent to all investigators who attended any one of the last three meetings in this series. The meeting will be the first international meeting in the US in four years covering all aspects of gap junctions (the last at Asilomar in 1987) and will make a special effort to include junior scientists, post docs and graduate students. We expect between 130 and 160 participants. This represents a slight increase over the number who attended past meetings and will allow attendance of a more diverse group than was possible at previous meetings. We believe this size of meeting will be small enough to promote informal interaction, but large enough to allow attendance by all who are interested in gap junctions. This meeting will provide the same essential airing of the latest techniques and discoveries which was characteristic of the past meetings in this series. We expect to publish the proceedings as a special volume on gap junctions.
