Welcome to the Fifth International Symposium on the Biology of Vertebrate Sex Determination

It seems hard to believe that it is more than ten years since the First International Symposium was held in Honolulu.  After the first three symposia we tried to retire, but under pressure and with much prompting from a number of senior scientists we continued, and with the help of Blanche Capel and Richard Behringer, especially in fund raising, the fourth symposium was held in Kona. 

The aim of these symposia is to bring together scientists and students from a wide variety of disciplines with a common interest in sex determination.  It is also our aim to raise sufficient funds to help graduate students attend this meeting.   At the last meeting we were fortunate enough to fund a number of students.   Let us hope we can do the same this time.

We are particularly interested in vertebrates that are unusual and can perhaps teach us new ways of looking at the evolution of sex determination.  Unfortunately the taxa that are of the greatest interest tend to be neglected by funding agencies.  Amphibians, reptiles and birds represent modern descendents of ancient lineages that share many genes in the sex differentiation cascade with mammals, but have features that are unique (teleost fish are included in this group, but they are well funded).  They lack SRY and many lack sex chromosomes, and if they have sex chromosomes they have little in common with mammalian sex chromosomes.  We especially encourage papers from these taxa.

Looking forward to yet another successful meeting in Kona.

Val Lance and Mark Bogart