And So It Begins…
It is Sunday evening and I’m sitting in the lobby of the Ventura Beach Marriott. I’ve been told there is an actual beach nearby, but I’ve yet to find it! The first session of the Gordon conference begins in about an hour, but already I’m very glad I came. At registration, we received a schedule that includes all poster presentations and there are about 20 scientific posters related to motile cilia function. In some ways, the posters are even more important than the formal talks because they represent the “cutting edge”–material that has not even been published yet. It’s a great opportunity to see what’s coming up in the future for research.
Saw Johnny Carson (ultrastructure guy), Maimoona Zariwala (geneticist) and Milan Hazucha (NO guy) from UNC already. Dr. Hazucha is in Ventura for a Gordon Conference on NO which just happens to be taking place about 2 miles from the Gordon Conference on Cilia. We will be having a joint meeting with the NO people Wednesday afternoon.
Tonight’s session is called “Generation and Control of Ciliary Movement.” There will be six speakers covering topics including how the structural anatomy of a cilium contributes to ciliary motility and how the actual cilium is built. I’ll try to post after the session, if I am still awake.