The 2017 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Cell Contact & Adhesion (CC&A) and associated Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will be held from June 17-23 at Proctor Academy, Andover, NH. The GRC has been held biannually since 1973 and has led both scientific progress and the training/mentoring pipeline of young scientists in the field. In work often presented in unpublished form at the CC&A GRC, the CC&A community has driven an appreciation of the complex and dynamic nature of cell contacts and their central role in guiding many cell behaviors such as polarity, signaling and mechanics and in driving human disease, particularly cancer. The scientific and social themes of the 2017 meeting seek to build unity in both the science of cell contacts and within the CC&A community. This will be achieved by communicating unpublished data, nucleating innovative multidisciplinary collaborations, defining community standards that enhance the rigor and reproducibility of cell adhesion experiments and mapping strategies for community-driven support for trainees/future scientific leaders.

Cell-cell contacts were initiating elements in the evolution of multicellular life forms. The 2017 CC&A GRC scientific program reflects the central role of cell contacts in complex biologies, building from new proteomic, imaging, computational and engineering approaches that are driving an unprecedented view of the molecular composition and dynamic nature of cell junctions, to ways that cell contacts guide polarity, mechanics and signaling within individual or neighboring cells, to studies of how communication among many cells governs morphogenesis, homeostasis and diseases of multicellular tissues. At every step the program will highlight new technologies, tools and approaches, while spotlighting the talent of young investigators.