The Genetic Disorders of Mucociliary Clearance Consortium
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Gordon Conference on Cilia, Mucus, and Mucociliary Interactions

March 2005

The first Gordon Conference on Cilia, Mucus, and Mucociliary Interactions, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, was held in California in early March 2005. More than 100 clinical investigators, geneticists, and basic scientific experts from around world participated in the Conference, which addressed aspects of several genetic diseases of the airways, including primary ciliary dyskinesia, variant cystic fibrosis, and pseudohypoaldosteronism. The PCD Foundation was represented by Michele Manion and Mary Kay Fowler-Wacholz.

There was a full session on Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia, which was chaired by Michael Knowles MD, and which included presentations on clinical manifestations (Margaret Leigh MD), ciliary ultrastructure (Estelle Escudier PhD, Paris), ciliary function (Chris O'Callaghan MD, Leicester, UK) and genetics (Maimoona Zariwala PhD, UNC and Heymut Omran MD, Freiburg, Germany).

This Gordon Conference was an exciting and rewarding "first" for Genetic Disorders of Mucociliary Clearance, and provided exceptional interaction among airway multiple disciplines, key to advancing the understanding of these diseases.