NOTCH SIGNALING IN VERTEBRATE DEVELOPMENT AND DISEASE

NOTCH SIGNALING IN VERTEBRATE DEVELOPMENT AND DISEASE

Workshop organized by José Luis de la Pompa, Juan Carlos Izpisúa-Belmonte and Thomas Gridley

May, 21-24, 2006, Campus of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

The Notch proteins encode conserved single-pass transmembrane receptors that regulate a broad range of cell fate decisions and differentiation processes during embryonic and adult life. Notch function in the CNS is to inhibit differentiation, maintaining cells in an uncommitted, stem cell-like situation. In contrast, the role of Notch in the immune system is to promote differentiation or to create a lineage bias. Aberrant Notch signaling in the adult leads to tumor formation, and depending on the tissue, Notch can act as an oncogene or as a tumor suppressor. Aberrant expression of different Notch pathway elements is responsible for developmental abnormalities, adult syndromes and dementia in humans. Understanding the mechanism of Notch function will increase knowledge of the molecular basis of cell fate specification and pattern formation in the embryo and in the adult, and may help to design therapeutic strategies to treat diseases such as cancer. Scientific areas to be included will be:
1) Notch signaling in development, 2) Notch signaling and mouse models in cancer and disease, 3) Notch signal transduction pathways and 4) Notch signaling, stem cells and tissue regeneration.

Speakers include:

Jon C. Aster

Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (USA)

Julian Lewis

Cancer Research UK, London (UK)

José Luis de la Pompa

CNB, Madrid (Spain)

Lucio Miele

Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL (USA)

G. Paolo Dotto

Univ. of Lausanne, Lausanne (Switzerland)

Barbara A. Osborne

Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (USA)

Achim Gossler

Medizinische Hochschule, Hannover (Germany)

Warren S. Pear

Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (USA)

Thomas Gridley

The Jackson Lab., Bar Harbor, ME (USA)

Olivier Pourquié

Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO (USA)

David Ish-Horowicz

Cancer Research UK, London (UK)

Freddy Radtke

Univ. of Lausanne, Lausanne (Switzerland)

Alain Israel

CNRS, Paris (France)

Ellen Robey

University of California, Berkeley, CA (USA)

Juan Carlos Izpisúa-Belmonte

The Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA (USA)

Isabella Screpanti

Univ. “La Sapienza”, Rome (Italy)

Anne Joutel

INSERM, Paris (France)

María Luisa Toribio

CBM, Madrid (Spain)

Raphael Kopan

Washington University, St. Louis, MO (USA)

Geraldine Weinmaster

UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (USA)

Sudhir Krishna

NCBS, Bangalore (India)

Daisuke Yabe

Kyoto University, Kyoto (Japan)

Urban Lendahl

Karolinska Institute, Stockholm (Sweden)

Juan Carlos Zuniga-Pflucker

Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, ONT (Canada)

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