2022 Gordon Research Conference on Photosensory Receptors and Signal Transduction

The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Photosensory Receptors and Signal Transduction (PRST) will be held in Ventura CA on March 26th, and March 27th, 2022, respectively. The GRS, which is primarily attended by graduate students and postdocs, and the GRC, will bring together senior and junior researchers from broad ranging disciplines to discuss and advance our understanding of biological molecules and cellular systems that sense light.

Light provides one of the primary environmental stimuli on our planet and Nature has evolved a remarkable palette of chromophore-containing molecules to provide specific responses to the specific wavelengths and intensities of electromagnetic radiation. The chemistry and biophysics of these systems is rich, complex and bears on our ability to design new systems to harvest energy and control biology with light.

Indeed, understanding how light signals are transmitted has the potential to improve crop yields through optimized photosynthesis and plant growth, allow the development of new molecular tools to study neuroscience and processes associated with vision loss and mood disorders. The themes of the GRC and GRS have been chosen to emphasize the most important, universal questions underlying these problems and to stimulate the exchange of ideas among diverse researchers to solve them.

The training and engagement of junior scientists, both postdoctoral fellows and graduate students is a priority of the conference. As such, mentoring activities and professional development sessions are also planned as part of the meeting. NSF support will be used to defray registration fee and/or travel costs of participants from groups historically under-represented in these fields.

The science presented at the 2022 PRST GRC and GRS will encompass the study of photosensory molecules from all domains of life. Mechanistic studies of light reception and signal propagation at the level of quantum behavior through macromolecular dynamics is a long-standing, central theme of the meeting. We will discuss the regulation of plant photobiology and the implications thereof for improving agriculture by increasing crop yields and developing more efficient biofuels.

Optogenetics, the ability to program protein localization, trigger signaling networks, control neuronal activity and modulate gene expression with light is another key area to be highlighted. Key scientific problems will drive technology development of x-ray lasers and modern synchrotrons, whose use will be underscored in several presentations. Understanding photosensory receptors in the broadest sense is critical to the advancement of many fields.

Lessons learned are applicable to not just biology but as precedents for improving energy harvesting and storage and in photovoltaic and other devices. In health-related areas, studies of photoreceptors can be applied to the recovery of vision and rescue of retinal degenerative diseases. Light entrainment of circadian rhythms impacts sleep, mood and mental health.

The talks and discussion groups hope to reveal how these processes function at the molecular level, thereby providing potential downstream avenues to address issues related to disruption of circadian rhythms such as depression, seasonal affected disorder and sleep abnormalities. The GRS presentations will be divided into two sessions: in which the most fundamental issues in photosensory signal transduction will be discussed: i) molecular mechanisms of phototransduction and ii) synthetic photobiology.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.