This application requests funds for partial support of the VIII International Workshop on Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plasminogen Activation. The field of plasminogen activation has evolved to encompass basic research of structure/function and its role in development, as well as more clinically related research pertaining to diseases of the heart and lung, cancer, including metastasis and angiogenesis, inflammatory diseases, obesity and neurology. This Workshop was established 13 years ago as a forum for interface and collaborations between scientists in very diverse disciplines. The uniqueness of the meeting is that it brings together established and new investigators in a setting that provides all participants with an equal opportunity to present their most recent work. Because the talks are short and the Workshop is mostly abstract driven, it encourages the presentation of only the most exciting and most current work. The attendance at the first Workshop in 1987 was 125 participants and it rose to 247 in 1997, the year for which NIH funding was obtained. The Workshop is held biannually, once in Europe and once in the US, to allow the participation of the widest scientific community. The physical locations are chosen to optimize the scientific interactions. For the VIII workshop, which will be held in Jackson Hole on September 5th to 9th, 2001, the US organizing committee made every effort to include women and younger investigators as members of the International Scientific Committee. The hope is that their participation as organizers will increase the participation of this segment of researchers in the Workshop. The rapid pace of scientific discovery in the basic and clinical aspects of PA should make this meeting extremely appropriate and timely. The requested funds will be used to help with travel expenses of session chairs, who serve as discussion leaders, and for postdoctoral fellows and students to facilitate their attendance and enable their interaction with experts and their participation in the new developments in the field. We anticipate that as in the past, extensive interactions and discussions will help identify new directions, problems and technologies that are necessary for identifying new therapies.
