Note to Speakers

Hundreds of laboratories in all countries are involved in studies pertaining to the function of the TNF family. To assure that the meeting will provide the most updated and valid notion of this wide scope of research, at least half of speakers in the meeting will be chosen based on submitted abstracts. Submission of the official abstracts will shortly be made possible at the meeting’s website. However, scientists with findings of exceptional interest are encouraged to submit their findings already now (in the form of one-page description) to the chairmen to allow their consideration for oral presentation. This submission should be done via email address: tnf2009@forumdideias.com.

General Outline of the Scientific Program

The meeting will focus on the ways in which the TNF superfamily members contribute to specific biological questions and medical problems and on the functional interactions of the TNF family with other families of signaling proteins, and how these interactions impact in both directions.
For that purpose
(a) We shall define sessions that deal with a distinct biological phenomenon to which the TNF family contributes, as well as sessions addressing novel aspects of the mechanism of action of the TNF family members.
(b) Each of the sessions will include, apart from speakers (invited, and chosen from abstracts) that will address functions of the TNF family members, also one or two distinguished invited speakers whose studies concern other groups of signaling proteins, which interact with the TNF family members and make important contribution to that particular biological/medical phenomenon addressed in the particular session.
(c) Each of the sessions will include time (~15-20 mins.) solely dedicated to discussion of the major questions addressed in this session. To facilitate these discussions, the major issues expected to be addressed in each of the sessions it will be briefly summarized by the chairmen in the website of the meeting (significantly before the time of the meeting).

Planned Sessions

(1) The TNF family in infections
This session will address the contributions of the TNF family to immune response in infectious diseases and its implications to medicine. Particular attention will be given to interaction of the family members, and of the signaling mechanisms that they activate, with the pathogen-recognition signaling mechanisms.

(2) The TNF family in autoimmunity, and its interaction with other cytokines
In this session, as in others, we shall, along with basic questions, discuss the major medical issues related to them. Frontline issues in the study of the contribution of cytokines of other families to autoimmune diseases will be presented. Attempt will be made to discuss major questions related to the use of inhibitors of the TNF family for therapy: the mechanisms accounting for the therapeutic effects of these inhibitors as well as for the unresponsiveness of some patients to the therapy, and the relation of these therapeutic effects to those of other emerging inhibitors, of other cytokines and of specific signaling molecules.

(3) The TNF family in cancer, and its interactions with growth-factor receptors
This session will address the role of TNF, of inflammation, and of NF kappa B, in tumor promotion, the therapeutic potential of the vascular destructive effects of TNF, the therapeutic potential of ‘DAMPs’, (mediators such as HMGB1 and S100, proteins released by cells dieing necrotically in response to TNF and to pathogen-associated molecular patterns), the contribution of aberrations and polymorphisms in signaling proteins such as caspase-8, and of proteins such as NIK that participate in NF kappa B regulation, to cancer, and the interaction of the TNF family with the mechanisms of action of the tyrosine kinase receptors.

(4) The TNF family in cell-death, and its interactions with other cell-death mechanisms as well with various tissue damaging mechanisms
This session will address the apoptotic death induced by the extrinsic cell-death pathway as well as other ways in which members of the TNF family induce cell death and tissue damage. Special attention will be given to the in vivo occurrence of cell death and its physiological/pathophysiolocial and medical implications

(5) The evolution of the TNF family and its involvement in normal development
This session will be dedicated, in part, to the evolution of the TNF family and its signaling proteins, as revealed in model organisms such as Drosophila and Zebra fish, and in part to the role of the family members in lymph node and skin appendage genesis, bone homeostasis and control of nerve regeneration.

(6) The TNF family and the neuronal system
In view of the growing interest and knowledge of this subject, we decided to dedicate a special session to the involvement of members of the TNF family in the normal function and pathology of the neuronal system. This session will address both the contribution of members of the TNF/NGF receptor family to the normal development of the brain and their involvement in various pathological situations that affect the brain, including degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases and Multiple Sclerosis, stroke, and psychotic disorders.

(7) Signaling mechanisms: novel aspects and unresolved questions
The sessions devoted to these subjects will present frontline developments in signaling research that are known to have bearings on signaling by the TNF family, including systems biology, the function of micro RNAs, post transcriptional modifications such as O-GlcNAcylation, and novel modes of linkage of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like proteins.