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Invitation

The RIKEN CDB was established to conduct research in the fields of development and regeneration, and to help establish scientific bases for regenerative medicine. As part of that mission, the CDB inaugurated a series of annual symposia in 2003 to facilitate the global and timely exchange of findings in related research fields (http://www.cdb.riken.jp/).

We are aiming to focus on the regeneration of organs in the 2014 CDB symposium. The invention of iPS cells by Dr. Yamanaka in 2006 has been greatly contributed to our understanding of reprogramming of cells into pluripotent states. Furthermore, the attempts to form organs such as brain tissues including eyes have been revealing that the formation of organs much induce self-organization processes, revising our knowledge of developmental processes. These cutting edge discoveries are greatly accelerating the realization of the　‘regenerative’ medicine. However, is this ‘regeneration of tissues’ in the ‘regenerative’ medicine the same phenomena as those observed as the ‘regeneration’ of tissues in wild animals? The ‘regeneration’ in the former case, indeed, can be regarded as ‘in vitro development’ of organs from pluripotent stem cells and their orthotopical transplant, and hence obviously appears to be distinct from the naturally occurring ‘regeneration’ of the missing part of organisms. On the other hand, regeneration biology in an orthodox sense are experiencing revolutionary advances by developing new model animals, in which, genetic manipulations such as gene knockdown and knockout as well as transgenic technologies are available to study regeneration. We believe that it will be a good timing to reconsider how different the regeneration of tissues from their developmental processes, why our higher mammals have a low ability of tissue regeneration, how we can incorporate ideas from other fields into regeneration biology.

Self-organization can be defined by clear logics based on the identification and quantification of parameters. For example, Turing pattern, a typical example of self-organization to generate spatially periodic patterns, can be explained by the intrinsic instability (called Turing instability) for a specific frequency range of a system state. Conditions for local (cell-cell) and global (beyond cellular scales) interactions to generate the patterns can be clearly calculated. Especially, in the past several years, an integrative approach, i.e., an organic link among high-resolution measurement system, bio-image informatics, data-based mathematical modeling, and computer simulations has permeated the field of developmental biology. By learning such approaches from studies of development and by extending to those of regeneration, we will be able to quantitatively understand highly-coordinated background logics of regeneration. Further, it may reveal the distinct mechanisms to govern the shape and the size of organs formed by development or regeneration, or the convergence of the process triggered by different ways in development and regeneration.

In the 2014 CDB symposium, we would like to discuss current advances and the future directions of studies on the regeneration of organs mentioned above. The program will consist of 5 sessions;
(1) Challenges to understand regeneration events at organ level
(2) Dissection of molecular mechanisms in regeneration
(3) Logics and principles of self-organization
(4) Mechanism to determine the size and shape of organs and organisms
(5) Self-organization in regeneration

The meeting is scheduled for 3 days, and the program is scheduled to start on the morning of March 10 and end in the afternoon of March 12, 2014. The program will include both oral and poster sessions. The number of participants, including invited speakers, will be limited to 150. We would be delighted to have your participation at the 2014 symposium.

We encourage the submission of abstracts for the poster session from many scientists to increase opportunities for lively and informative exchange of views. A small number of poster abstracts will be selected for oral presentations. A limited number of travel fellowships for graduate students and post-docs traveling to Japan will also be available.

We look forward to welcoming you to Kobe and the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology.

Masatoshi Takeichi
Director, RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology