What better venue than Tuscany to come together and explore the communication, sensation and perception functions of our skin and sensory epithelia?

We are delighted to welcome to our meeting one speaker on each of the five senses embedded within our traditional skin-focused program: Stefan Heller (hearing), John West (vision), Maya Sieber-Blum (touch), Anne Calof (smell), and Linda Barlow (taste). They will enlighten us about the highly specialized epithelia they study, and introduce the theme of communication between the epithelium, its appendages, and the brain.

In addition, we will be joined by several new speakers outside our immediate field, who will bring us up to date on topics such as stem cell lineages and niches, neural crest cells that reside in the skin, the role of the dermis in specifying epidermis, and an exciting new session on structural biology. Our meeting will span the entire life cycle of a keratinocyte, from stem cell to differentiation to skin cancer, touching upon aspects of both normal and uncontrolled growth. In addition, we will explore epithelial development and differentiation throughout a broad range of model systems, including drosophila, zebrafish, axolotl, chick, mouse, rat and human.

In celebration of our first meeting in Europe, please join us in awakening our senses with some outstanding science in this beautiful location.