The Cell Cycle and Genomic Stability

Roscoff (Brittany), France, April 26-30, 2008

Booked. Late submissions will not be considered

• Chairperson: Jonathon Pines,
  Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, Tennis Court Road,
  Cambridge CB2 1QN , United Kingdom
  Phone: +44 1223 334088 – Fax: +44 1223 334089
  Email: jp103@cam.ac.uk

• Vice-Chairperson: Yves Barral
  Institut für Biochemie, HPM1, Room F13.1. Schafmattstrasse 18. ETH Zürich.
  CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
  Phone: + 41 (01) 632 0678 – Fax: + 41 (01) 632 1591
  Email: yves.barral@bc.biol.ethz.ch

The year 2008 will mark 20 years since the first Roscoff conference on the cell cycle at which the main research groups in the field first realised that they were working on the same conserved cyclin-Cdk ‘engine’ that drives the cell cycle. We will celebrate this remarkable event with a plenary lecture from Tim Hunt, one of the two Nobel laureates who participated at that first meeting.

Since then, an important issue that has come to prominence is how defects in the cell cycle contribute to genomic instability and whether this is a cause or a consequence of cancer. This is an exciting and highly topical area because many of the new strategies to develop chemotherapeutic drugs are focusing on the cell cycle regulators of chromosome segregation. This conference will aim to bring together researchers in different areas, including the mechanics of cell division, the checkpoints that monitor genomic integrity (DNA replication and chromosome segregation), and the consequences of aneuploidy and failures in cytokinesis, to address the question of how failures in cell division impact upon the development of cancer. In particular, the conference will focus on the following topics:

• DNA replication and the establishment of sister chromatid cohesion
• The decision to enter mitosis (mechanics and checkpoints)
• How the spindle is properly assembled (control of centrosome duplication and spindle bipolarity)
• Chromosome attachment and the spindle checkpoint (mechanics and how improper attachments are sensed and corrected)
• The spindle checkpoint and the APC/C (how the checkpoint acts on the cell cycle machinery)
• Cytokinesis and abscission (mechanics and controls)
• Aneuploidy and tumourigenesis (do aneuploidy and polyploidy have a causal or facilitatory role in cancer?)

Invited speakers

(Provisional titles)

BARRAL Yves ( Zurich , Switzerland )
NoCut: how budding yeast cells make chromatin clearance from the midzone a condition for the completion of cytokinesis

CLEVELAND Don (La Jolla, USA)
Guarding the genome: the mitotic checkpoint, aneuploidy and tumorigenesis

DASSO Mary ( NIH , USA )
Function of Nuclear Pore Components at Mitotic Kinetochores

DOYE Valérie ( Paris , France )
Involvement of nuclear pore constituents in cell cycle progression

EARNSHAW William (Edinburgh, UK)
Epigenetic manipulation of a human conditional kinetochore

GOTTA Monica ( Geneva , Switzerland )
Control of polarity and spindle positioning in C. elegans

GOUD Bruno ( Paris , France )
Role of Rab GTPases in mitosis and cytokinesis

HAGAN Iain ( Manchester , United Kingdom )
Controlling mitotic commitment from the G2 spindle pole

HUNT Tim ( London , United Kingdom )
The End of Mitosis

HUNTER Tony ( La Jolla , USA )
Phosphorylation and ubiquitination in DNA damage signaling and checkpoint control

JAVERZAT Jean-Paul (Bordeaux, France)
Cohesin dynamics during the fission yeast cell cycle

JESSUS Catherine ( Paris , France )
Control of Cdc2 activation in Xenopus oocyte

KARESS Roger ( Paris , France )
Mad2 and BubR1: a few surprises from Drosophila

KARSENTI Eric ( Heidelberg , Germany )
Purification of CDK vintage 2008

KORNBLUTH Sally ( Durham , USA )
Aven protein and regulation of the DNA damage checkpoint

KREK Willy ( Zurich , Switzerland )
Signalling at the cell’s antennae: the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor and the primary cilium

MECHALI Marcel ( Montpellier , France )
Coupling DNA replication with development and cell identity

MORGAN David ( San Francisco , USA )
Finishing mitosis

MURRAY Andrew ( Boston , USA )
Prometheus Bound: how cells align their chromosomes

MUSACCHIO Andrea ( Milan , Italy )
Microtubule attachment and regulation of the mitotic checkpoint

NASMYTH Kim ( Oxford , United Kingdom )
Does cohesin concatenate sister DNAs?

NIGG Erich ( Munich , Germany )
The DNA-dependent ATPase PICH - a tension sensor in the spindle assembly checkpoint?

PAOLETTI Anne ( Paris , France )
Cell polarity and division plane definition in the fission yeast S. pombe

PETERS Jan-Michael ( Vienna , Austria )
Regulation of sister chromatid cohesion in mammalian cells

PINES Jonathon ( Cambridge , United Kingdom )
Getting in and out of mitosis

SALMON Ted ( UNC , USA )
The architecture of the kinetochore-microtubule attachment site

VERNOS Isabelle ( Barcelona , Spain )
Phosphorylation dependent regulation of spindle assembly

YANAGIDA Mitsuhiro ( Kyoto , Japan )
Control of mitosis via kinetochores and condensing

Booked. Late submissions will not be considered

Registration fee (including board and lodging)

• 400€ for PhD students
• 550€ for other participants

Application for registration

The total number of participants is limited to about 115 and all participants are expected to attend for the whole duration of the conference. Selection is made on the basis of the affinity of potential participants with the topics of the conference. Scientists and PhD Students interested in the meeting should send:

• their curriculum vitae
• the list of their main publications for the 3 last years
• the abstract of their presentation

to the Chairperson of the conference before the deadline. After it, the chairman will select the participants. Except in some particular cases approved by the chairperson, it is recommended that all selected participants present their work during the conference, either in poster form or by a brief in- session talk. The organizers choose the form in which the presentations are made. No payment will be sent with application. Information on how and when to pay will be mailed in due time to those selected.