WORKSHOPS AND SYMPOSIA ORGANIZED BY NICHD INTRAMURAL RESEARCH PROGRAM STAFF IN 2002-2003

International workshop "Protein trafficking: molecular mechanisms and disease"

This four-day workshop, held in October, 2003, in Pucon, Chile, was organized by Juan Bonifacino, CBMB, together with Enrique-Rodriguez Boulan, Cornell Medical School, and Alfonso Gonzalez, Center for Cell Regulation and Pathology (CCRP), Chile. It was cosponsored by the NICHD, the American Society for Cell Biology, CCRP, and the Millenium Institute for Fundamental and Applied Biology, Chile. The workshop served as a forum for the presentation and discussion of recent ndings on the role of protein trafficking pathways in the biogenesis of endocytic and secretory organelles and on the diseases resulting from dysfunction of these pathways. Several sessions examined the molecular machineries that sort proteins to different the Golgi complex, endosomes, lysosomes, and the plasma membrane. specific topics discussed included sorting signals and their cognate adaptors, the generation of transport vesicles, and the participation of cytoskeletal motors in the movement of vesicular and tubular transport carriers. Important physiological processes analyzed in relation to these molecular mechanisms included the regionalization of specific domains of the plasma membrane, epithelial morphogenesis, the biogenesis of lysosomes and synaptic function, in each case considering examples of altered processes that lead to disease. The following prominent scientists in the field participated: Willem Annaert, Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; Alfredo Cáceres, Instituto Mercedes y Martîn Ferreyra, Universidad de Córdoba, Argentina; Pietro de Camilli, School of Medicine, Yale University; Victor Faúndez, Emory University School of Medicine; John Hammer, NIH; Kathryn Howell, School of Medicine, University of Colorado; Vivek Malhotra, University of California; Keith Mostov, University of California, San Francisco; Sandra Schmid, The Scripps Research Institute; Thomas Söllner, Sloan Kettering Institute.

Inverse Problems and Medical Imaging

This four-day workshop, held in Vancouver on August 2003, was organized by the prestigious Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences of University of British Columbia, and supported by the NSF. Amir H. Gandjbakhche, LIMB, was among the organizers of this event. The workshop focused on recent developments in medical imaging, particularly the advances in mathematics that have allowed significant enhancement of widely used imaging techniques such as x-ray tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasonic imaging. Mathematical developments in emerging medical imaging modalities, such as optical imaging, were also surveyed. The aim of the workshop was to bring together investigators working on different aspects of these fields and to encourage interaction between mathematicians, physicists, and physicians. Thirty international experts including Dr. Gandjbakhche, were among the invited speakers, who identified critical limits and prospects of mathematical inverse problems in different imaging modalities.

The Genetic Code Revisited: the Impact of Functional Genomics in Medical Research

This symposium on functional genomics, in honor of Marshall W. Nirenberg, was held on December 16, 2002, at the Natcher Conference Center at the NIH. Marshall Nirenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1968 for his ground-breaking, landmark studies in the 1960s that culminated in the elucidation of the genetic code. The studies laid the intellectual foundation for the extraordinary progress in biology that we have witnessed over the last 35 to 40 years and led to the new era of functional genomics, which will have a critical impact on molecular medicine, understanding of human disease, and, ultimately, improvement of human health. The day-long symposium consisted of three sessions: "The Genetic Code and the Biology of the Cell"; "Strategic Uses of Functional Genomics"; and "Therapeutic Advances through Genomics." The speakers were prominent scientists who work in the genomics field, including researchers trained in Dr. Nirenberg's laboratory.

 

Welcoming remarks were delivered by Elias Zerhouni, NIH director. Over 800 people attended the event, which was organized by three former postdoctoral fellows who were in Dr. Nirenberg's group in the 1960s and are still working at the NIH: Dolph Hateld, chief, Section on the Molecular Biology of Selenium, Basic Research Laboratory, NCI; Samuel Wilson, deputy director, NIEHS; and Judith G. Levin, chief, Section on Viral Gene Regulation, LMG, NICHD. Dr. Nirenberg's institute at the NIH, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, sponsored the event. A detailed description of the symposium was published in the NIH Record of January 21, 2003 (vol. LV, no. 2).

Fourth International Retroviral NC Symposium

Judith Levin also served on the Scientific Committee for the of this three-day symposium, held in September, 2003, in Strasbourg, France. The retroviral nucleocapsid protein (NC) is a small, highly basic, nucleic acid-binding protein, which has one or two zinc fingers, each containing the invariant CCHC motif. It is now known that NC functions in multiple steps in virus replication. In view of the critical importance of this protein in the life cycle of the retroviruses and especially HIV, a symposium is organized every two years for researchers in this field. This year's conference featured sessions on the interaction of NC with nucleic acids with reports on structural and physicochemical studies and the role of NC in reverse transcription, recombination, integration, and encapsidation of genomic RNA. Other discussions focused on the role of NC and other retroviral proteins in virus assembly and new developments in NC-based HIV vaccines and anti-NC drugs.

World Congress on Iron Metabolism

The 16th International Conference of the International BioIron Society, held concurrently with the 6th International Symposium on Microbial Iron Transport, Storage and Metabolism in May, 2003, at the NIH was organized by Tracey Rouault, chief, Section on Human Iron Metabolism, CBMB, and Victor Gordeuk, Professor of Medicine, Center

for Sickle Cell Disease and Department of Medicine, Howard University. During the five-day meeting, sessions were devoted to such topics as regulation of iron metabolism, hemochromatosis, iron and neuro-degenerative diseases, iron and the response to hypoxia, mitochondrial iron metabolism and iron sulfur cluster biogenesis, hepatic iron metabolism and treatment of hepatitis, and iron chelation and iron overload in sickle cell disease, thalassemia, and other iron-loading anemias.

 

Laser Capture Microdissection and Macromolecular Analysis of Normal Development and Pathology

Robert Bonner has continued to organize and hold international conferences at NIH on Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) and Macromolecular Analysis of Normal Development and Pathology, this year bringing together about 500 researchers to discuss research and methodological advances made possible by LCM.

 

International Conference on Delayed and Nondisclosure of Child Sexual Abuse

In August 2003, Michael Lamb and his staff in the Section on Social and Emotional Development and their collaborators convened an international conference on delayed and nondisclosure of child sexual abuse; a book based on the conference proceedings is in preparation.

Pineal Microarray Workshop

David Klein and his colleagues organized and sponsored of the first Pineal Microarray Workshop. The workshop was held at the Airlie Conference Center, Coolfont, WV, in January, 2003, to provide investigators from six laboratories an opportunity to present and discuss their results from microarray-based gene expression analysis of the pineal gland. The work presented included studies using three experimental platforms, and tissues from three mammals and one avian species. The workshop was successful in accelerating the exchange and assessment of the results of this body of work, much of it unpublished at the time the meeting was held. A major outcome was the identification of sets of genes that are highly expressed in the pineal gland of all the species examined, establishing those that are common pineal genes. In addition, identification of a number of genes that are highly expressed in only one species suggests that the pineal may also have pineal-specific functions.