The third Gordon Research Conference on Photosensory Receptors and Signal Transduction will be held in Il Ciocco, Italy. This conference was initiated five years ago in this beautiful Tuscany location and is now alternating every two years between United States and European sites. The conference will focus on current research on photosensory receptors in different biological systems, covering topics of their structure, and light activation and signal transduction mechanisms.

In addition to human vision, light controls movement, growth, differentiation and development, circadian clocks, and a host of gene-expression responses in diverse organisms from microbial prokaryotes and lower eukarytes to plants and animals. Progress is being made on several long-standing fundamental questions on the mechanisms of photon energy capture, photoreceptor activation and intramolecular mechanisms of signal relay, and signal transduction pathways, and genomic information is becoming powerful tool to clarify their evolution and distribution in nature. Scientists investigating photosensory receptors in such very different living systems are confronting many of the same challenges in elucidating the sensory transduction mechanisms and pathways involved in photosensory processes. This Conference is expected to provide a forum for stimulating and intense discussion on general mechanistic principles emerging from cutting edge research in photosensory signal transduction, and to promote the diverse experimental tools available for the study of photosensory biology and biotechnological applications.

Photosensory systems included in the program are microbial, lower eukaryote, and vertebrate and invertebrate visual rhodopsins, phytochromes in prokaryotes and higher plants, cryptochromes in plants and animals, phototropins and LOV-domain receptors in plants and different organisms, photoactivated adenylyl cyclase (PAC), photoactive yellow proteins (PYPs), the new family of BLUF flavoprotein photoreceptors, and others.

Invited speakers will be encouraged to present their most recent unpublished work and ample time will be allocated for both formal and informal discussion periods. In addition to the oral sessions, we are also looking forward to informative and lively poster sessions.