The Gordon Research Conference on "Signaling by Cell Adhesion Receptors", focuses on how cells sense and respond to mechanical signals from the extracellular matrix (ECM) and neighboring cells, and how they convert those signals into changes in cell movement and cell-cell interactions that effect cell organization in development, disease and cancer. The nexus for integrating these signals and their cellular responses are cell adhesion receptors to the ECM (integrins) and other cells (cell-cell adhesion proteins). The Conference provides a unique forum to compare, contrast and integrate information from the latest studies on a diversity of adhesion receptors to ECM and cells, and the cellular mechanisms linking them to intracellular signaling pathways and the cytoskeleton. Defining these mechanisms is central to understanding the mechanics of cell movements and cell-cell interactions and how they apply to embryogenesis and tissue morphogenesis, changes in cell behavior in response to extracellular signals from the ECM and other cells, and genetic defects that cause cells to by-pass normal controls that maintain tissue integrity in diseases such as cancer.

Planned Sessions include: cell migration and organization in 3-dimensions evolution of cell-cell adhesion proteins; mechanisms of cell migration and organization during embryogenesis; regulation of stem cell organization by adhesion receptors; cell adhesion receptors in genetic diseases and cancer; coupling structure and function of cell adhesion complexes; downstream signaling by cell adhesion receptors; dynamics, physics and mechanics of cell adhesion receptors; forces generated by cell adhesion receptors.

Because the Conference is positioned at the nexus of cell adhesion, signaling and fate, it attracts international scientists from a diversity of disciplines including developmental biologists and clinicians interested in 3-D tissue organization and disease processes, cell biologists and biochemists interested in cellular mechanisms, and biophysicist and bio-engineers interested in measuring mechanical forces and fabricating cell environments. The crosstalk and cross-fertilization of ideas between scientists with these different research interests and expertise contributes greatly to the impact of the Conference across these fields. The Conference relates detailed molecular insights from basic research on membrane proteins and the cytoskeleton to human development and cancer. There is a strong cancer relevance to the Program in addition to stem cell biology, evolution, epithelial biology and differentiation, vascular biology and neurobiology.