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The Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation Environmental Sensing and the Cellular Response About the Symposium Trieste is an ancient city on the Adriatic Sea where Italian, Germanic, and Slavic cultures intersect. Before it became part of a united Italy 50 years ago, the city was at various times under the sway of Rome, Venice, Austria, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Communist Yugoslavia. No wonder its people are adept at communicating in many languages, enjoying both strudel and gnocchi, and thriving in a complex and rapidly changing environment. According to speakers at the 7th Annual Symposium of the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation, living cells and biologic systems are every bit as adaptable as the host city’s people. “Environmental Sensing and the Cellular Response” was the theme of the event, held in Trieste June 21-23. Marc W. Kirschner and Carla J. Shatz, who respectively head The Armenise Center for Integrative Biology and Physiology and The Armenise Center for Neurosciences at Harvard Medical School organized the Symposium. Many of the 15 invited lectures and 18 poster presentations offered molecular insights into the senses – including vision, hearing, and taste – that organisms use to explore and experience the outside world. Other speakers delved into the inner world of cells, exploring how they communicate with their own kind and with other cell types using biochemical, mechanical or other signals. Nearly 60 scientists accepted the Foundation’s invitation to this year’s Symposium, half from basic science departments at HMS and half representing Italian universities and research institutions in Milano, Padova, Pisa, Roma, Torino, and the host city of Trieste. This mix reflects the Foundation’s commitment to stimulating knowledge exchange and collaboration between American and Italian scientists, a mission that echoes the history and goals of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, which hosted the Symposium. The ICTP was founded in 1964 by Abdus Salam, a Pakistani-born physicist who spent most of his career in Italy and who shared the1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with two Harvard University professors. “Scientific thought is our common heritage,” Salam often said, and his motto serves equally well for the Armenise-Harvard Foundation. In his closing remarks, co-convener Marc Kirschner paid tribute to Count Giovanni Auletta-Armenise and former HMS Dean Daniel Tosteson for creating a powerful catalyst for collaborations among Italian and American scientists. Kirschner summarized the scientific sessions as “a perfect balance of information, in an environment where it can be appreciated, with the right number of participants.” At the closing session, he announced this year’s recipients of awards and grants sponsored by the Foundation. Career Development awards are intended to help young Italian researchers “jump start” laboratories in their home country, and this year’s winners are Sabrina Sabatini and Stefano Gustincich. Sabatini has been studying in Utrecht, Holland, and will pursue her research on growth hormones in plants at the University of Rome. Gustincich, who recently moved from Harvard to the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, worked with individual retinal neurons to devise methods useful for studying other neural networks as well. A second initiative, the Foundation’s HMS Junior Faculty Grants, helps underwrite research by promising young investigators at Harvard Medical School. This year’s grants went to Sean P. J. Whelan and Bernardo Sabatini, who described his research on synapse formation in a symposium presentation. Whelan works on reverse genetics of arenaviruses, microbes that cause animal and human diseases ranging from mild, flu-like illnesses to lethal hemorrhagic fevers. Symposium Pages
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About
the Symposium
