2025 Decoding Microproteins Across Evolution and Disease Gordon Research Conferences - Microproteins, a recently identified class of proteins, play crucial roles in various diseases, including cancer, genetic disorders, metabolic issues, and neurodegenerative conditions. Recognizing their significance in health care, research efforts worldwide are focused on exploring microproteins for diagnostics and therapeutics. However, a comprehensive gathering of international experts in the field has been missing until now. Here, we describe the inaugural 2025 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Decoding Microproteins across Evolution and Disease (Microproteins-GRC), which seeks to fulfill this unmet need in the research community. Microproteins-GRC will engage a broad and interdisciplinary set of experts that represents biomedical communities, such as human genetics, oncology, and drug development, along with basic science fields, including evolutionary biology, cell biology, and emerging technologies. This conference will cater to a broad audience, including clinicians, researchers, trainees, and industry professionals, fostering collaboration and discussion to drive innovative microprotein research. The outcome of this conference will be to catalyze forward-thinking collaborations that propel patient-facing health solutions based on microproteins. To facilitate this goal, the Microproteins-GRC conference program was intentionally arranged to highlight cutting-edge topics in microprotein research that are critical to advance this research community forward towards novel solutions for patient care. We will immediately establish this theme through our opening keynote session that spotlights the medical relevance of microproteins in cancer as well as the healthcare-related microbiome. We will return to this theme in the closing keynote session which will describe immunologic-based microprotein therapies as well as drug development. In between, we feature seven sessions detailing microproteins in evolutionary model systems, cell biology, human genetics, immunology and cancer. We will achieve this conference program through an expert set of discussion leaders and speakers that showcases early-career investigators and senior faculty members. Additional opportunities for early-career scientists are available through late-breaking talks that are selected from submitted abstracts. Throughout this process, we emphasize the theme of scientific excellence through both conscientious decision-making as well as a GRC-led forums for substantive and open discussions addressing contemporary issues in science. The Aims of the 2025 Microproteins-GRC will therefore foster scientific excellence, cultivate mentorship for trainees, and disseminate dynamic research on microproteins to nurture collaboration and innovation that addresses pressing issues in human health and disease. As a result, this conference will have a direct impact on the mission of the NIH, especially the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).
