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Dear colleague, This is to bring to your attention that there will be a session on Structural Biology in Neurological Disorders at ACA 2008. Description of the session is below. We encourage you to submit abstracts for the session and to attend while at the ACA meeting. Please note that the deadline for abstract submission is Dec. 15 after which the late submission fees will be assessed. Consult www.amercrystalassn.org/AbsSubmit/ for details of the abstract submission. Your questions about the session can be directed to Ruslan Sanishvili (Nukri). We are looking forward to seeing you in Knoxville, TN 13.03 Structural Biology in Neurological Disorders Time: Sunday Afternoon Organizers: Ruslan Sanishvili and Gergely Toth Description: For the first time, structural biology in neurological disorders will have a dedicated session at the ACA meeting. Neurological disorders rank second only to cardiovascular disorders among all diseases, if disease morbidity and mortality are combined, and is the first when suicide and substance abuse are included. The World Health Organization [WHO, 2001] estimated that over 450 million people around the world are affected by neurological disorders. A part of structural biology research in this area has been focused on elucidating the fundamentals of protein missfolding and protein fibrilization/aggregation and their connection to the cause of ailment such as Alzheimer‟s and Parkinson‟s diseases. Another part of structural biology research has been lagging behind, which is understandable, if one considers that many of the “players” or “villains” in these disorders are membrane proteins and intrinsically disordered proteins. To complicate matters, in many cases it is the interaction between several gene products or regulatory processes that often break down leading to disorders. As a result, structural biology of neurological disorders has been an extremely challenging field. Increased funding and development of advanced techniques in all steps of structural research allowed some of the challenges to be overcome and today we are witnessing impressive growth in the field. Particularly, advances in electron microscopy, multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance and X-ray crystallography have enabled much of the progress. The session will present results of structural studies from wide range of neurological disorders – those which have been studied for number of years and those with more recent breakthroughs; those with large populations of affected persons and those with relatively few, or “orphan diseases”. Ruslan Sanishvili (Nukri), Ph.D. GM/CA-CAT, Bld. 436, D007 Biosciences Division, ANL 9700 S. Cass Ave. Argonne, IL 60439 Tel: (630)252-0665 Fax: (630)252-0667 [log in to unmask]