Ve ry recently, his group has also shown that another ER protein, TMEM24, alters its localization at ER-PM contacts reversibly, governed by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation in response to oscillations in cytosolic calcium. [2] A lipid-binding module in TMEM24 transports the phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2] precursor phosphatidylinositol between bilayers, allowing replenishment of PI(4,5)P2 hydrolyzed during signaling. He concluded his talk with a remark that the membrane contact sites are an emerging field, where even a new journal was created recently, with many open questions remaining, which provides many scientific opportunities for young researchers. The second lecture of this first evening session was a Keynote lecture by Paul Wender (Stanford University, USA). A grand challenge in science and medicine is breaching biological barriers for the drug delivery, including plasma membranes, bacterialmembranes,algalcellwalls,mitochondrialmembranes, skin, gastrointestinal tract, and blood brain barriers. The general golden rule is that a drug molecule has to have just the right polarity (not too polar, not too non-polar) to cross hydrophobic membranes. That is why RNA delivery is notoriously difficult; RNA has a high number of negative charges. This is the current bottleneck to its enormous clinical potential. To overcome this challenge, the Wender and Waymouth groups have synthesized new carrier molecules, Charge-Altering Releasable Transporters (CARTs), which are highly cationic and complex the anionic mRNA yet are designed to convert to neutral entities after crossing the membranes thereby releasing mRNA. This collaboration has shown the efficiency of CARTs by delivering luc-mRNA into mice using this delivery system, which presented luminescence emission peaking after 4 h. [3] They have employed CARTs also in cancer immunotherapy. In non-published work, he showed that the mouse immune system can be trained by injecting mice with mRNA-CART complexes, which dramatically improved the ability of mice to combat cancers that are implanted afterwards. This amazing new technology can be used as a cancer vaccination and also for treating established tumors. His group has also developed a scalable synthesis of a natural compound Bryostatin [4] and its analogs for latent HIV infections. Current HIV therapy is chronic with cost, compliance, resistance and chemo exposure issues because the active virus is re-supplied by 'reservoir cells' with replication competent genomically encoded virus. Elimination of these reservoir cells in conjunction with current antiretroviral therapy could lead to HIV/AIDS eradication. Bryostatin and the analogs Wender's group synthesized, activate these reservoir cells, allowing for their elimination through cytopathic or immunotoxin effects and possibly eradication of disease. Bryostatin is today in clinical trials for cancer immunotherapy, Alzheimer's disease and HIV eradication. These collaborative and translational efforts show how Chemical Biology can truly make a change...