This proposal requests funds in partial support of a symposium to be held on the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington, from October 27 - 30, 1994. The symposium is entitled, "Origins and evolution of animal body plans". The problem of the origin of animal body plans and their modification in evolution has become a topic of considerable excitement. Evidence from paleontology on the pattern and history of the Cambrian radiation provides one new source of data and insight. Molecular phylogeny is now beginning to make an important impact on understanding these events as well. Finally, the explosive recent progress in developmental genetics has revealed both important mechanisms subject to evolution and genes that play major regulatory roles in development of a wide diversity of animals. The interface between paleontologists, developmental biologists, molecular biologists, and evolutionary biologists has become striking, and has begun to resolve major problems in when and how animal body plans appeared and how they have been modified in evolutionary time. The meeting is the eighth in an annual series presented under the auspices of the Indiana Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology at Indiana University. Previous topics have included "The genetic and molecular analysis of development", "Proteins as machines", and "Biological regulation by protein modification". The objectives of the organizing committee are to bring together an international group of the leaders in the disciplines that are contributing to major aspects of the central theme to present the current ideas contributed by their disciplines. Previous experience has shown that integrative conferences can produce new syntheses in science. The timing is appropriate to achieve this kind of interaction on this topic. Although existing meetings deal with some aspects of these subjects, no one meeting has attempted to fully integrate all of the approaches. There is no society devoted to the evolution of development, and equivalent results cannot be met through existing society meetings.
