This proposal is to request support for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled """"""""Molecular Basis for Biological Membrane Organization and Dynamics"""""""", organized by Tom A. Rapoport and Sandra L. Schmid, which will be held in Snowbird, Utah from January 10 - 15, 2010. Cellular membrane biology is a major area of research. Membrane proteins function as receptors, ion channels, or transporters, while the lipids provide not just a barrier between aqueous compartments, but also serve as signals. Lipids and proteins combine in as yet not fully understood ways to establish and maintain membrane organization and specific membrane domains. This meeting will address major questions in membrane biology that remain unanswered, including the structure of membrane proteins (we only know ~100 structures, but 25% of all proteins are membrane proteins!), the mechanisms driving membrane organization and curvature, mechanisms of organellar biogenesis and the transport between organelles, and how membranes undergo fusion and fission. In addition, the meeting will cover emerging techniques. A major goal of the meeting is to bring together cell biologists, biophysicists and theoretical biologists, which in the past had little interaction.
The Molecular Basis for Biological Membrane Organization and Dynamics meeting addresses the important area of how cellular membranes are assembled and do their work. More specifically, this meeting will address major questions such as the structure of membrane proteins, the mechanisms driving membrane organization, and the biogenesis of subcellular organelles. Because interdisciplinary research is key to discovery, a major goal of the meeting is to bring together cell biologists, biophysicists and theoretical biologists, who heretofore have had little opportunity to interact.
