(Organized by H. Criss Hartzell and Michael Pusch)
If for no other reason than the need to maintain electroneutrality, anions are the equals of cations, and chloride channel dysfunctions underlie not only in cystic fibrosis but a host of other diseases. Nevertheless, anions often appear to take the backstage in discussions of membrane transport and ionic homeostasis. Recently, however, they got equal time at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Society of General Physiologists, which took place in Woods Hole, MA, September 3–7, 2003. H. Criss Emory from Emory University of Medicine and Michael Pusch from the CNR Instituto de Biofisica organized the symposium on Biology of Chloride, which highlighted the recent progress that has taken place in understanding the physiological importance of cellular Cl− homeostasis and transport. With 196 participants, and 120 invited and poster presentations covering a broad range of topics....
