Monday Morning
So I’m in the hotel cafe having my pre-breakfast coffee. There are about 200 people at the conference and we have all meals together, but since I’m pretty useless until my first cup of caffeine, I try to fit one in prior to meeting with everyone.
I estimate that the attendance is almost half and half, American and international. It is amazing to see the collaborative spirit in the cilia research community. Many projects are jointly sponsored by labs all over the world. Last night, the speakers focused on the extreme complexity of the structure of cilia and flagella. This has been recognized for years, but there is seemingly new information coming out all the time. Dynein arms themselves are very complex structures and the goal is to use what is being learned in Chlamydamonas (a single-celled algae) flagella because this information translates into the human genome quite nicely.
Again the researchers pointed out that not only do the structures in the cilium look different (outer dynein arms vs. inner dynein arms vs. central pair), but they are biochemically distinct which is why it is so difficult to find all the potential areas of dysfunction. I’ve seen these models and heard the talks for years now, but when you see the complexity of ciliary ultrastructure, it actually is amazing that cilia EVER work they way they’re supposed to!
The UNC group was pretty much dragging last night–all day in planes or on shuttles and a three hour time difference to boot, so we’ll have more time to talk today.
That’s it for now–need to get back to my IV caffeine infusion–