GoingToMeet

The cytoskeleton is intricately involved in many aspects of cellular physiology including mitosis, cytokinesis, polarity determination, organelle placement, and directed cell expansion. The Plant and Fungal Cytoskeleton meeting seeks to gain new knowledge from the study and comparison of these branches of the phylogenetic tree. Research on the plant and fungal cytoskeletons has become particularly exciting in recent years. With the explosion in molecular techniques it is possible to clone genes for numerous cytoskeletal proteins and their associated regulatory proteins and motor molecules, and to examine their functions in living cells. There have also been significant innovations in microscopy and cell manipulation procedures and together these methods have revealed exciting new mechanisms. Topics in 2008 to be covered include the functional analysis of mitotic forces and the molecular motors that generate them, elucidation of cell cycle regulation of cytoskeletal organization and dynamics, cytoskeletal protein structure-function relationships, organelle biogenesis and segregation, generation of polarity and cytokinesis, cytoskeletal and membrane interactions, and microtubule organizing centers. In addition, cytoskeletal properties of parasites will be covered to understand the differences in life style required as a parasite.