ABSTRACT
Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Mammalian Sensory Systems, organized
by Drs. Stephen Liberles, David D. Ginty, Jeffrey R. Holt and Melanie Samuel. The conference will be held in
Seattle, Washington from March 15-19, 2019.
Our basic external sensory systems - touch, taste, vision, hearing, and smell - enable us to perceive the world
around us, and other internal sensory systems enable us to perceive the secret world within us. Recent advances
have revealed the molecular logic of how some sensory systems work, while other sensory systems remain
uncharted. Fields of sensory biology often maintain separate cultures, and are at varying levels of maturity, with
different frontiers, unknowns, and perspectives. The goal of this meeting is to bring leading experts from different
sensory fields together, and to broadcast conceptual and technical advances achieved in one sensory system
that may enable new findings in others. Symposia will highlight recent advances in each external sense: vision,
olfaction, taste, hearing, and touch/pain/temperature sensation, as well as new developments in the emerging
field of internal organ sensation. Speakers will be included to discuss a range of topics from (1) receptors and
sensory mechanisms, (2) neural circuits, (3) behavioral and physiological responses, and (4) the genetic basis
of sensory deficits.