9616741 Thomas This award supports the participation of American scientists in a U.S.-Japan-Australia seminar on Molecular Interactions of Actin, to be held in Maui, Hawaii from April 1-5, 1997. The co-organizers are Professors David D. Thomas of the University of Minnesota, Toshio Yanagida of Osaka University in Japan, and Cristobal G. dosRemedios of the University of Sydney in Australia. This seminar will focus on the role of actin in the process of contractility and cell movement, and will examine how actin interacts with other proteins at the structural level. Actin is a biomedically important protein that plays an essential role in the contraction of all muscles and is a major component of the cytoskeleton which is crucial to the function of every cell in both animals and plants. This seminar will bring together researchers from the United States, Japan and Australia who have developed complementary techniques to study actin biophysics. The exchange of ideas and data with Japanese and Australian scientists will enable the U.S. scientists to advance their own work, and will set the stage for future collaborative research projects. Seminar organizers have made a special effort to involve postdoctoral researchers. The proceedings of the meeting are expected to be published in a book entitled Actin and Actin-Binding Proteins. ***
