Myelin – Rethinking Functions, Revealing Mechanisms, Developing Medicines

Despite comprising nearly 50% of the human CNS and PNS, myelinated axons represent a neglected area of research when compared with the level of activity examining neurons. The conventional view is that myelin simply accelerates conduction velocity along the axon. However, recent advances have shown that myelin provides critical metabolic support to the axon and also contributes to the plasticity that underpins learning. New genetic and imaging technologies have revealed how the spectacular cell-cell interaction that creates the multi-lammellar is formed and identified novel mechanisms that control myelination and lead to its pathology in common diseases such as multiple sclerosis, perinatal white matter injury and peripheral neuropathies. In turn, these advances have led to the development of screening platforms that have provided a new generation of drug targets for myelin regeneration – so providing potential therapies for diseases that cost the US alone tens of billions of dollars annually.

Together, these advances have led to a renaissance in myelin research and the state of the art of the field will be presented and discussed at the 2016 Myelin Gordon Research Conference entitled "Myelin – rethinking functions, revealing mechanisms, developing medicines". This meeting of 200 attendees will take place between May 16-20 2016 in the spectacular setting and climate of the Tuscany region of Italy. The speaker list will comprise the newly-established PIs who, together with senior scientists in the field acting as discussion leaders, have driven these advances. Some additional shorter talks will be selected soon before the meeting to capture further cutting-edge developments. The meeting will be preceded on May 14-15 by a Gordon Research seminar (GRS) entitled "Unravelling myelin: new insights into generation and regeneration" aimed specifically at the graduate students and post-docs for whom these meetings will provide a unique opportunity for training, establishing collaborations and becoming, in turn, the next generation of scientific leaders in this exciting and important field.