Chemokines in disease models and pathogenesis.

Investigators from a wide variety of disciplines met at the Second National Managed Health Care Congress Meeting on chemokines held in Washington, D.C. on December 14-15, 1997, to discuss the role of chemokines in the pathogenesis of disease states, as well as a number of biological issues. Presentations on the effects of chemokines in animal models were interspersed with talks on fundamental chemokine structure-function relationships, signal transduction, the role of chemokine in cell trafficking, inflammation, immunity and hematopoietic development. Although it was impossible to consider the score of chemokine receptors and the 50 or more chemokines cloned to date, most of the more well established and some of the newer chemokines were discussed. We will first summarize the preconference symposium on the role of chemokines in neurobiology and then review the various issues addressed by the other speakers to provide a more integrated rather than sequential summary of the proceedings.