This application seeks partial funding for the Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Regulatory Mechanisms, which will be held July 28, 2002 to August 2, 2002 at Connecticut College in New London, CT. The Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Regulatory Mechanisms has had a highly successful history of success. The most important goal of this meeting is to bring together the most talented and productive scientists from different disciplines concerned with far ranging aspects of cardiac regulation. A specific objective is to create an atmosphere of inclusive, intense, and live discussions where all contribute. The informal nature of the GRC has through the years been a fertile matrix for the generation of new ideas and new personal and scientific connections. It is a great venue for inclusion of young investigators. These interactions are vital to our understanding of the relation between basic molecular and cellular mechanisms and the overt manifestation of cardiac regulation in health and disease. The unifying theme of the GRC meeting in 2002 is heart failure. This is an exciting time in cardiac research with the best scientists turning their attention to translation of the basic molecular and cellular biology of heart cells to diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of heart failure. In a meeting such as this it is truly possible to have realistic discussions of topics from molecules to man framed in workshops and symposia with heart failure as an underlying theme. The times are also exciting because many of the molecules regulating cardiac function have been identified, their genes have been cloned and genetic linkage to the syndrome of hypertrophy and failure of the heart is unfolding. The emergence of new technologies related to genomic and proteomics have the promise of making the connection between structure and function more firm. How hypertrophy and failure of the heart may arise from alterations in structure/function relations will be emphasized in the 2002 GRC conference. The conference not only includes cutting edge science but also the impact of emerging technologies on our ability to probe molecular mechanisms. These emerging technologies are the subjects of sessions on genomics and DNA arrays, informatics, and proteomics. The meeting will also include meaningful "phenotyping" as an explicit topic. Other sessions that are novel and timely deal with Gender Related Differences, Integrative Biology and Mathematic Modeling, Metabolic Adaptation and Gene Expression, and Localization and Scaffolding in Cell Signaling. Much of the time of the meeting is devoted to debates and discussion. Presentations of late breaking science from young investigator will be added from the posters submitted to the meeting.