The 204th National meeting of the American Chemical Society will be conducted in Washington, DC. As part of this meeting, a one-day symposium has been organized on the topic of "Fluorescent Chemosensors," which is sponsored by the Division of Organic Chemistry in collaboration with the Divisions of Medicinal Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry. The intent of this meeting is to bring together the handful of researchers world-wide currently involved in the design and synthesis of abiotic fluorophores that bind to small molecules or ions with a resulting change in fluorescence. Fluorescent probes have known wide utility in the study of macromolecules; likewise, biotic probes based on antibodies continue to provide potent diagnostic tools. Nevertheless, there remains interest in real-time assay of small molecular species for which biosensors may not be ideally suited: C02, Na+ , Li+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Pb2+, P-i, PPi, to name a few. The goals of this meeting are: ( to permit those currently working in this area of chemistry to discuss their researches leading to greater signal transduction, especially in wholly aqueous solution; (2) to open a dialog with those potential end-users of such tools, in order to assess what sensors might be of greatest utility; and, (3) to alert others to the potentials for research in this area.