Symposia | 1st Annual

The Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation
First Annual Symposium - Erba, Italy
June 18-20,1997

About the Symposium

A new scientific tradition was inaugurated in Erba, Italy, in June 1997. The first annual symposium of the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation for Advanced Scientific Research brought together nearly 100 biomedical researchers from Harvard Medical School, Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital, and four leading Italian scientific institutions. Attendance was limited to researchers who had received grants from the Foundation, which gave participants an opportunity to present their latest findings and explore future collaborations in a collegial and private atmosphere.

The Foundation's philosophy is that multidisciplinary, basic science research will lead to practical advances in medicine and agriculture that will ultimately improve the lives and health of people around the world. In addition to supporting projects that use the tools of molecular biology to unlock the secrets of living cells, the Foundation actively encourages researchers on opposite sides of the Atlantic to pool their expertise and work together. This three-day symposium promoted the kinds of informal discussions that often give rise to new and fruitful collaborations.

Oral and poster presentations at the Foundation's 1st Annual Symposium were grouped under five headings:

: Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology
: Signal Transduction
: Control of Cell Proliferation
: Development
: Structural Biology and Enzymology

This report is organized along the same lines. Each of the five sections begins with a general overview of the topic, followed by brief summaries of presentations made at the symposium.