News

Fifth Annual Joint Meeting of the Great Lakes GPCR retreat and the Club des Récepteurs à Sept Domaines Transmembranaires
Report: Dr. Richard Leduc

The Fifth Annual Joint Meeting of the Great Lakes GPCR retreat and the Club des Récepteurs à Sept Domaines Transmembranaires was recently held at the Chateau Bromont in the beautiful Cantons de l'Est region of Quebec, Canada.

The goal of this annual meeting is to provide a relaxed and informal atmosphere in which to discuss and debate current and novel concepts in GPCR biology and biochemistry. On the weekend of November 5th -7th 2004, more than 175 participants from Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia got together to listen to speakers in six separate oral sessions and to exchange with scientists at two sessions where 74 posters were presented.

The meeting began with the plenary conference of Dr. Charles Zuker on the biology of Mammalian Taste. The sessions ranged from structure-function of GPCRs, GPCR signalling, GPCR sorting and trafficking, chemoattractant GPCRs, Model Systems and Novel Paradigms (see http://www.gpcr-retreat.com/).

Three Biochemical Journal poster prizes were awarded by Dr. Richard Leduc (Université de Sherbrooke), editor for the journal and co-organiser of the meeting with Drs. Michel Bouvier (Université de Montréal) and Stéphane Laporte (McGill University).

The winners were:

Kevin Holmes, Robarts Institute, London, Ontario
"Characterization of Corticotropin Releasing Factor-1 alpha internalization and desensitisation"

Jennifer Bomberger, Michigan State University
"Receptor activity modifying proteins' (RAMPS) role in regulation of post-endocytic receptor trafficking"

Celine Galés, University of Montreal, Quebec
"Real-time Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) reveals rapid conformational changes within stable receptor/G protein complexes following activation"