IAS Focused Program on Membrane Trafficking: Molecular Mechanisms and Physiological Relevance (July 6-7, 2023) IAS Focused Program on Membrane Trafficking: Molecular Mechanisms and Physiological Relevance (July 6-7, 2023)

Updates
July 10, 2023
Thank you for attending the IAS Focused Program on Membrane Trafficking: Molecular Mechanisms and Physiological Relevance! The group photo is available for download here. We look forward to seeing you at HKUST IAS again in the future!
 
July 3, 2023
An email has been sent to all registrants on July 3, 2023, informing them of their acceptance or rejection. Notes for poster presenters are also included in the email. If you have registered for the event but have not received any communication from us, please reach out to the secretary at ias2023mt@ust.hk.
Walk-ins are welcome but admission will be subject to the availability of seats at the venue.
 
June 26, 2023
Both the online registration and call for poster presentation are now open until June 30, 2023. Applicants will be informed of the acceptance by July 3, 2023.
 
June 15, 2023
Call for Poster Presentation
- Interested participants please follow the instructions below to submit application on or before June 26, 2023:
  1. Please register for the program at http://ias.ust.hk/events/202307mt/register/ (**You do not need to re-register if you have already done so.)
  2. Please download and complete the application form here and send it to the Organizer and the Program Secretary at guoyusong@ust.hk and ias2023mt@ust.hk.
- Applicants will be informed of the acceptance by June 30, 2023.
 
The program schedule is now available in the “Schedule” section.
 
Overview

Membrane trafficking is an essential cellular process in which cargo molecules (typically proteins and lipids) are delivered from one place to other places by membrane bound transport vesicles. This process is essential to deliver (or secrete) molecules, such as growth factors, insulins and hormones, from the producing cells to the blood stream for them to perform their physiological functions. This process is also important for the cells to receive nutrients as well as other molecules from the blood stream or other places so that cells can grow and sense the outside environment. Similar to the trafficking in our daily life, membrane trafficking involves several essential steps including the loading of specific cargo proteins into vesicles, the transport of vesicles along the highway system (cytoskeleton) inside of cells to their specific destinations, and unloading of cargo at the destinations. Sophisticated molecular machineries have been employed by cells to achieve the accuracy of each of these trafficking steps.

Recently, various experimental approaches have been performed which have provided clear functional and mechanistic insights into the membrane trafficking process. Moreover, with the revolutionary progress of gene editing technology such as the CRISPER/Cas9 technology, significant progresses have been achieved in understanding how vesicular trafficking regulates the physiological processes. The new studies are revealing the physiological relevance of genes required for protein secretion and how they can be targeted to control human pathologies.

The overall goal of this program is to gather top scientists working on membrane trafficking to share their most recent breakthroughs and discoveries. This program also aims to promote information dissemination to other academic communities in order to foster interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. Furthermore, an important emphasis of this program is to promote interaction between local and international scientists and stimulate their collaborations.

Group Photo

Organizers and the participants gather for a group photo.

Organizers
Xiao-Wei CHEN
Peking University
Yusong GUO
HKUST