The Biological Code of Cell Signaling - A Tribute to Tony Pawson (F1)

Prompted by the recent loss of one of the brightest stars in the life sciences, we are planning a Keystone Symposium to honor the memory of Tony Pawson. The aim of the meeting would be to provide a forward-looking symposium rooted in his prodigious scientific legacy. It would constitute a natural evolution of previous symposia organized by him (such as the “Omics Meets Cell Biology” series and “The Evolution of Protein Phosphorylation”). As such, the scientific focus of the symposium would be on the role of post-translational modifications (PTMs), modular protein domains and signaling networks as driving forces of human evolution and disease. The cellular world that Tony, with others, unlocked consists of dynamic protein networks created through the interactions of different protein modules, which together drive almost every intra- and inter-cellular decision process we know today. His most important contribution in this field is undoubtedly his discovery of the first protein interaction module, the SH2 domain, but numerous other interaction domains followed, leading to current investigations of how the dysregulation of these networks leads to new signaling states in disease that are critical for processes in, for instance, cancer, such as tumor progression or drug resistance. The symposium will thus span the entire spectrum of fields that have been touched by Tony Pawson's prolific and inspiring research, while maintaining a strong forward-looking perspective.