Chemotactic Cytokines: Gordon Research Conference on Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms in Health and Disease
Chemotactic Cytokines 2012 will be our 10th GRC. This is a good juncture to look back and commemorate a series of unforgettable meetings, all marking significant milestones of the extraordinary journey in time by the molecules of our dreams, chemokines. From their humble beginnings on the fringes of experimental research as a couple of leukocyte chemoattractants, chemokines became one of the largest families of coherently functioning, versatile intercellular signals, studied now by the cutting edge mainstream molecular science and medicine. It is currently clear that chemokine activities contribute to almost every aspect of our biological existence, starting with the moment of our conception, through months of intrauterine confinement; protecting us during the years of growth, health and wellbeing, only to push us later on, along the countless avenues of diseases, ultimately into the grave. As much as it is almost impossible to encompass the breadths of all chemokines’ activities, it became also impossible to cover all the aspects of contemporary chemokine research, even at a comprehensive conference, such as GRC. Instead of attempting this, Chemokine GRC 2012 for the first time will have a specific thematic focus, also reflected in its title, Chemotactic Cytokines: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms in Health and Disease. This means that, rather than restricting in any way the breadth of chemokine implications covered, our GRC will concentrate primarily on their most fundamental, mechanistic aspects. The research on chemokines has considerably accelerated and spread from initially few principal centers to thousands of institutions worldwide. Hence, nowadays it is hard to predict ahead of time in which laboratories the hottest and the coolest chemokine discoveries of 2012 will emerge. In anticipation of such discoveries and to conform with the spirit of the Gordon Conference, calling to showcase cutting edge unpublished data, we allocated even more speaker slots to the late breaking and short talks selected from abstracts. These should complement invited lectures by top scientists covering biochemistry of chemokines and the cellular responses to them, in vitro and in vivo mechanisms of chemokine induced migration, chemokines in immune organogenesis and immune organ function, chemokines in infection and immunity and the contribution of chemokines to the disease pathogenesis, including cancer.
Venue:
Il Ciocco Tuscany Resort
Fraz. Castelvecchio Pascoli
Contact:
Chair
Antal Rot
Mrc Centre For Immune Regulation
University Of Birmingham
Ibr Medical School
Vincent Drive, Edgbaston
Birmingham, B15 2TT
United Kingdom
Vice-Chair
Andrew D. Luster
Massachusetts General Hospital
Center For Immunology & Inflammatory Diseases
149 13th Street
Room 8301
Charlestown, MA 02129