This year's meeting integrates cellular biochemistry, molecular recognition, chemical biology, and bioinformatics under the unifying theme, "A Molecular Exploration of the Cell." Scientists (and journalists) can choose from:

• More than 100 presentations of new research.

• Seven award lectures by scientists internationally honored for discoveries such as the reason aspirin works, the mechanisms that modulate T-cell response, and what makes membrane-spanning receptors a major target of new therapeutic drugs.

• Ten overarching symposia: cellular organization and dynamics, genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics; integration of signaling mechanisms; molecular and cellular biology of lipids; molecular recognition and catalysis; protein modifications and turnover; protein structure, catalysis, and dynamics; regulation of gene expression and chromosome transactions; signaling pathways in disease; and the future of education and professional development in the molecular life sciences.

• Exhibits of the latest scientific technology.