PHILADELPHIA – Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will be presenting at the annual meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology, which will be held from July 26-30, 2008 on the Penn campus.
Highlights of Penn scientific presentations:
- Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) - How does one tissue become another?
Eileen M. Shore, Departments of Orthopaedics and Genetics, and the Center for Research in FOP and Related Disorders
Dr. Shore will discuss the molecular genetics of FOP and how its signaling pathway is now a specific therapeutic target not only for patients with FOP, but also an important new focus for developing applications to prevent other more common conditions of too much and too little bone formation.
Plenary Session III Tues. July 29, 2-5:30
- The zebrafish unplugged - The role of zebrafish in understanding development
Michael Granato, Department of Cell & Developmental Biology
Dr. Granato will discuss the role of the zebrafish gene unplugged in guiding neuromuscular development.
Concurrent Symposia I, Sun. July 27, 9 am – 12:30 pm
- The control of organ size in mice
Benjamin Z. Stanger. Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and the Department of Medicine
Dr. Stanger will discuss how embryonic tissues differ in their ability to sense size and how the presence or absence of such a sensor might underlie growth regulation during adult tissue regeneration.
Concurrent Symposia III, Tues. July 29, 9 am – 12:30 pm
Nearly 800 US and international developmental biologists are expected to attend the meeting. Nobel laureate Eric Wieschaus, current president of the society, has assembled a program of 45 invited speakers, 36 speakers selected from submitted abstracts, 350 posters, and 25 commercial vendors. Among the invited speakers is Nobel laureate Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Dr. Wieschaus and Edward B. Lewis in 1995 for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development.
For more information on the full program and venue locations, please visit the meeting website at: http://www.sdbonline.org/2008Mtg/webpage.htm
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