On Friday, May 15th, 2009, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University will host "Local Traffic 2009," the 8th Annual Pittsburgh Symposium on Intracellular Membrane Traffic (https://apps.bio.cmu.edu/localtraffic/ ) . This is a one-day event supported by the university and commercial sponsors. The annual meeting brings together principal investigators, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and technicians from The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the Department of Biological Sciences, and the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as attendees and speakers from institutes and universities in neighboring cities.

This year, Dr. Jim Rothman from Yale University will be our keynote speaker. Dr. Rothman is the Chair of the Department of Cell Biology and his work has significantly increased our understanding of the basic, biochemical processes underlying protein transport in the cell. We therefore again anticipate a large attendance and have had over 100 attendees at each of the previous meetings. The meeting combines talks by students, postdocs, and senior investigators with a poster session and career development lunch and a vendor show.