We request partial support for the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) titled ?Wnt Signaling: A Signaling Network in Development, Regeneration and Disease? to be held August 11- 16, 2019 at the Mount Snow Conference Center in Vermont, USA. This meeting will be chaired by Karl Willert (UC San Diego, USA), with Mariann Bienz (Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK) and Stephane Angers (University of Toronto, Canada) as vice chairs, and will include presentations from many of prominent scientists, at varied career stages, active in the field of Wnt biology. The GRS will be held at the same location August 9-11, 2019, and will feature talks from up and coming graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and will be led by postdoctoral fellows Stephanie Grainger (UC San Diego, USA) and Melissa Gammons (Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK).
The specific aim of the conference is to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of recent advances and new ideas in all aspects of Wnt biology. Progress in this field has consistently accelerated and has touched on countless biological processes in all metazoan life forms. In addition, the Wnt pathway is widely recognized as a critical regulator of tissue homeostasis, and, consequently, its de-regulation is associated with many disorders, from early developmental abnormalities to age-related diseases, such as cancer. Session topics have been selected on the basis of their potential impact on the key current scientific questions in development, stem cell biology and cancer. The meeting is structured to include sessions on the biochemistry and structural features of Wnt signaling components, the cell and systems biology of signal transduction and gene expression, the regulation of stem and progenitor cells during development and tissue maintenance and renewal, and the defects associated with dys-functional Wnt signaling. Insights into the Wnt function will be gleaned from a broad spectrum of model organisms, including hydra, worms, flies, frogs, fish and mice. The diversity of scientists gathering at this meeting along with the broad spectrum of topics will not only provide a fertile learning environment that will certainly benefit all attendees, but will also lead to new insights, interactions and future collaborations that will push the boundaries of biomedical research. The main long-term goal of this GRC is to raise our understanding of this complex and critical signaling pathway and thereby contribute to the continuous development of methods to target and manipulate this pathway for eventual therapeutic interventions of currently incurable diseases.
The 2019 Gordon Research Conference titled ?Wnt Signaling: A Signaling Network in Development, Regeneration and Disease? seeks to advance our understanding of how the highly conserved Wnt signaling pathway influences developmental processes and disease. The proposed meeting will cover a broad spectrum of biological systems, approaches and methodologies and bring together a diverse group of scientists, including structural biologists, embryologists, and stem cell and cancer researchers.
