This proposal requests partial support for a brand-new Gordon Research Conference (GRC) entitled ?Mitochondria in Health and Disease?, which is scheduled for March 2019. This conference is brand new to the GRC, an organization known world-wide because of the high-quality, cutting-edge nature of its meetings. We anticipate 200 participants, including a large contingent of graduate students, postdocs and early career independent scientists. The program will provide unique opportunities for the many female scientists and other under-represented minorities working on the field by scheduling 10+ female speakers and discussion leaders, a power hour, a meeting with NIH program directors, and fellowships and short talks reserved for minorities. Mitochondria were traditionally thought to act only as cellular powerplants. Recent progress in genetics, proteomics and imaging approaches to track mitochondria in vivo have provided evidence that mitochondria are central to cell signaling and dynamics. However, we still know very little about how they behave in the cell, and what influences them biochemically and physically. The proposed conference will focus on these aspects of mitochondrial existence both in model systems and cells with specialized structural and functional arrangements like neurons, cardiomyocytes and muscle fibers. The program will have an emphasis on the physiological situations but will also cover mitochondrial stress responses elicited by various conditions, including environmental exposures which initiate or augment cell injury, and the balance between homeostasis and apoptosis. Considering the dominance of cardiac, neuronal, and muscular impairments in mitochondrial diseases, the program of the new conference will focus on these tissues. The following subject areas will be discussed in 9 separate platform sessions: Construction of mitochondria, biosynthesis of lipids; Mitochondrial transfer and positioning; Contact formation and function; Membrane fusion-fission and content exchange; Signaling on the mitochondrial surface (BCL-2 family complexes and other signaling complexes) and in the intermembrane space; Calcium and ROS signaling; Mitochondrial stress responses; Diseases originated from or progressed by mitochondrial pathobiology; New technologies to facilitate mitochondrial biology research. Thus, we will address the unmet needs for comprehensively support of the broad and rapidly emerging mitochondrial biology research and the wealth of scientists who have been working on this field, including junior investigators who seek training. We intend to capture the full diversity of global mitochondrial biology and medicine research with our conference, which should set us apart from other meetings and should result in a deep and lasting impact on the field. Overall, supporting this conference is of multifold relevance for the mission of NIH: (1) will accelerate research by providing a new forum for a robustly developing field, (2) will foster a cross-disciplinary perspective, (3) will educate and facilitate networking and career opportunities for junior scientists, (4) will create opportunities for under-represented minorities.
The mitochondrial biology and medicine field is (once again) in rapid growth, and it is our intention to capture this momentum and excitement with a new conference focused specifically on this vibrant and diverse topic. The program will cover several organ systems that are mostly affected by the mitochondrial impairments and their response to a variety of stressor, including environmental stress. Thus, the program is aligned with the objectives of several NIH institutes and it creates unique opportunities for females and underrepresented minorities working on the field.
