The Notch Meeting 07
International Biomedical Conference
Athens, 23 - 27 September 2007


A very important international conference on the "Notch" signaling pathway was held at the Karatzas auditorium, in Athens, from 23 to 27 September 2007.

"Notch" is a molecular signaling mechanism that enables cells in a tissue to coordinate their activities so that the tissue can function as a coherent whole. In contrast to other well-studied mechanisms, such as hormones, the Notch signal works locally to "micro-manage" cellular behaviour. In the last decade research on Notch has increased explosively because of the realization that it participates in a myriad of biological functions from normal development and organogenesis to immunity and is implicated in various diseases from neurodegeneration to cancer.

This was the first time the international scientific community studying the Notch signaling pathway will meet for a five-day conference. The subjects to be discussed will cover areas from the molecular dissection of the proteins and genes which make up the pathway to the development of pharmaceuticals to treat diseases associated with Notch malfunction. Three hundred scientists from the world?s most important research institutes attended this successful meeting organized by Fondation Sant?. Because of the intense interest within the scientific community and the importance of this research field, it has been decided that the conference will be organized biennially.



 The Organizing Committee

Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas, Harvard Medical School, USA
Irv Bernstein, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA
Sarah Bray, University of Cambridge, UK
Tony Capobianco, The Wistar Institute, USA
Christos Delidakis, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Greece
Tasuku Honjo, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
Alain Israel, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Hippokratis Kiaris, School of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece
Raphael Kopan, Washington University, USA
Sudhir Krishna, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India
Urban Lendahl, Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Julian Lewis, London Research Institute, UK
Lucio Miele, Loyola University Chicago, USA
Barbara A. Osborne, University of Massachusetts, USA
François Schweisguth, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
Isabella Screpanti, University "La Sapienza", Italy
Nancy B. Spinner, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, USA
Gerry Weinmaster, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, USA

The Sessions

The Sponsors

We are grateful to Exelixis Inc for co-sponsoring the 2007 Notch meeting by making a generous gift to the foundation. Additional grants were kindly provided by Merck & Co Inc., and Biology, The Company of Biologists Ltd.