Our understanding of the regulation of hematopoiesis at the molecular level has greatly increased over the last few years. There has been the rapid identification of the transcription factors that control differentiation and lineage commitments as well as the signal transduction pathways that contribute to the physiological regulation. These studies have begun to reveal the factors that control the plasticity of stem cells and allowed opportunities for regulation not previously envisioned. The precise roles of individual genes, alone or in combination, have been most dramatically defined through the derivation of murine genetic models in which genes are deleted or modified in defined ways. As a consequence of the advances across the broad area of hematopoiesis, a new challenge has emerged to find ways to merge this information to obtain a more global understanding. The goal of this meeting is to meet this challenge by bringing together investigators working on a variety of aspects of hematopoiesis including investigators focusing on the lymphoid lineages, on the myeloid lineages, on signal transduction, families of transcription factors and on the regulation of apoptosis. By bringing these investigators together it is anticipated that new concepts, relationships and approaches will emerge. It is also anticipated that by having presentations across a wide range of hematopoiesis and a range of approaches that this forum will be an outstanding forum for students, postdoctoral fellows and investigators that are establishing research programs to obtain a broad overview of the current status of research in the area of hematopoiesis.
