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Small meeting, maximum interaction ARVO/ISOCB meeting in Portugal The relatively small size of the newly created ARVO International Society for Ocular Cell Biology (ISOCB) meeting allowed for maximum interaction between attendees, including the audience and speakers, at poster sessions and in informal venues surrounding the meeting. The meeting took place September 9-12, 2009, at the Vila Galé Ericeira Hotel in Ericeira, Portugal. Ericeira is a seaside fishing village and resort area about 36 km northwest of Lisbon. This Gordon Conference-style meeting was attended by approximately 140 researchers, largely from Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. In contrast to the more traditional tissue-based organization of platform and poster presentations common to ARVO meetings, the format of this meeting was topic-driven. Ten platform sessions (with 4–6 speakers each, including invited speakers as well as those drawn from the submitted abstracts) and four attendant poster sessions were featured, covering a range of topics pertinent to fundamental biological processes as well as associated pathological conditions that occur in retina, lens, and cornea. The topics included: • ocular gene expression • channels • signal transduction and membrane trafficking • ocular development and regeneration • inflammation and oxidative stress • blood and lymphatic vasculature • extracellular matrix and cell adhesion • epithelial-mesenchymal transition and epithelial cell biology • stem cells and cell-based therapies • cytoskeleton. In addition, there were four plenary lectures, three of which were given by prominent scientists (two notably from outside the vision/ophthalmic science community) on topics of general interest to ocular cell and molecular biologists. These included: • Dirk Grimm, PhD (University of Heidelberg, Germany), who talked about RNAi and gene therapy approaches; • Alain Prochiantz, PhD (Collége de France, France), who addressed homeoprotein-based signaling in nervous system development and plasticity; and • Vivek Malhotra, PhD (Center for Genomic Regulation, Spain), who spoke on the role of TANGO1 in intracellular trafficking. The fourth plenary lecture was given at the conclusion of the meeting by Leonor Beleza, LLB, president of the Champalimaud Foundation (based in Lisbon, Portugal), who talked about the partnering of this prominent private philanthropic organization with individual vision scientists as well as research groups to support biomedical research and to promote breakthroughs leading to preventions and cures for blindness and visual impairment world-wide. The Program Organizing Committee for this meeting was led by Miguel Seabra, MD, PhD (Imperial College London, UK, and Instituto Gulbenkian de Cience, Portugal) and Steven J. Fliesler, PhD (University at Buffalo/State University of New York and the Veterans Administration Western New York Healthcare System, US). The committee included ISOCB co-founders John Greenwood, PhD, and Stephen Moss, PhD (Institute of Ophthalmology, UK), as well as Melinda Duncan, PhD (University of Delaware, US), and Nancy Joyce, PhD (Schepens Eye Research Institute/Harvard Medical School, US). The next ARVO ISOCB meeting will take place in mid- to late-2011, likely at a location in northwestern North America.