Progress 04/01/12 to 03/31/13
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The Gordon Research Conference on MITOCHONDRIA & CHLOROPLASTS was held at Bryant University Smithfield, Rhode Island, July 29-August 3, 2012. The Conference was well-attended with 169 participants (attendees list attached). The attendees represented the spectrum of endeavor in this field coming from academia, industry, and government laboratories, both U.S. and foreign scientists, senior researchers, young investigators, and students. Of the 169 attendees, 41 voluntarily responded to a general inquiry regarding ethnicity which appears on our registration forms. Of the 41 respondents, 14% were Minorities - 2% Hispanic, 12% Asian and 0% African American. Approximately 14 % of the participants at the 2012 meeting were women. In designing the formal speakers program, emphasis was placed on current unpublished research and discussion of the future target areas in this field. There was a conscious effort to stimulate lively discussion about the key issues in the field today. Time for formal presentations was limited in the interest of group discussions. In order that more scientists could communicate their most recent results, poster presentation time was scheduled. Attached is a copy of the formal schedule and speaker program and the poster program. In addition to these formal interactions, "free time" was scheduled to allow informal discussions. Such discussions are fostering new collaborations and joint efforts in the field. Thank you for your support of this Conference. As you know, in the interest of promoting the presentation of unpublished and frontier-breaking research, Gordon Research Conferences does not permit publication of meeting proceedings. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
The 2012 Gordon Research Conference on Mitochondria and Chloroplasts will assemble an international group of scientists investigating fundamental properties of these organelles, and their integration into broader physiological processes. The conference will emphasize the many commonalities between mitochondria and chloroplasts: their evolution from bacterial endosymbionts, their genomes and gene expression systems, their energy transducing membranes whose proteins derive from both nuclear and organellar genes, the challenge of maintaining organelle integrity in the presence of the reactive oxygen species that are generated during energy transduction, their incorporation into organismal signaling pathways, and more. The conference will bring together investigators working in animal, plant, fungal and protozoan systems who specialize in cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, proteomics, genomics, and structural biology. As such, this conference will provide a unique forum that engenders cross-disciplinary discussions concerning the biogenesis, dynamics, and regulation of these key cellular structures. By fostering interactions among mammalian, fungal and plant organellar biologists, this conference also provides a conduit for the transmission of mechanistic insights obtained in model organisms to applications in medicine and agriculture. The 2012 conference will highlight areas that are moving rapidly and emerging themes. These include new insights into the ultrastructure and organization of the energy transducing membranes, the coupling of organellar gene expression with the assembly of photosynthetic and respiratory complexes, the regulatory networks that couple organelle biogenesis with developmental and physiological signals, the signaling events through which organellar physiology influences nuclear gene expression, and the roles of organelles in disease and development. The roster of speakers will have no overlap with that of the prior conference, and will include scientists with international recognition as well as young investigators. The program will be further balanced by selecting a number of short talks from abstracts. To maximize interactions among attendees, we urge all participants to present their recent progress either as a poster or as a talk. The conference will be enhanced by an accompanying Gordon Research Seminar (GRS). The Gordon Research Seminar provides a special forum for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to present and discuss their research, and to gain confidence to participate actively in the following GRC. A GRS was held in conjunction with the prior two Mitochondria and Chloroplast GRCs, and was a resounding success on both occasions. Special consideration will be given to qualified applicants who are also members of a group under-represented in the sciences (e.g. low income and first generation, Native American, African American, Latino, or Pacific Islander), faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions, and scientists from developing countries.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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