A multidisciplinary collection of studies performed over the past decade has highlighted the critical roles for disrupted chromatin and gene regulatory mechanisms in human diseases, ranging from cancer to immune conditions and neurodevelopmental disorders. These findings have prompted the development of a wide range of new mechanistic investigations and discovery efforts toward the development of targeted therapeutics. However, the effective translation of basic mechanisms remains both slow and challenged, owing in part to incomplete understanding regarding the connectivity between epigenetic factors, gene expression and cellular functions. This meeting seeks to address this gap by bringing together basic science and clinical experts spanning the academic and pharmaceutical sectors who are focused on chromatin and gene regulatory mechanisms. Collaborating and combining diverse expertise will enable us to develop more effective strategies to combat major health challenges rooted in epigenetic mechanisms.

This meeting will concentrate on new insights into established and emerging mechanisms of disease-related chromatin and gene regulatory proteins and protein complexes. Among the areas of emphasis will include the contrast between catalytic and non-catalytic functions of chromatin modifying factors, roles for structured and intrinsically disordered regions, the interplay between such factors and other proteins. Specifically, this meeting seeks to connect timely observations identified by large-scale cell fitness, gene and chromatin profiling, and proteomics efforts with biochemical, biophysical, 3D structural, and sequence-function centered work. Such a linkage is expected to maximally inform intricate mechanisms of chromatin and its associated dysfunctions in diseases, and further, to inspire new basic research and therapeutic discovery efforts in this area. By way of the topics and approaches covered, this meeting will convene a highly interdisciplinary group of basic and translationally-oriented scientists, stimulating new discussions between groups of investigators who are not routinely placed in the same meetings and those encompassing new approaches in drug discovery and development that can accelerate translation to new medicines.