Chapters on hypoxia signal transduction, phosphoserine/threonine-binding domains, targeting of polycomb repressive complexes, conserved signaling mechanisms in innate immunity, and signal transduction by stress-activated MAP kinases have been provided by the keynote speakers at the meeting. Other topics included among these reports on recent research are receptor signaling, protein kinase cascades as therapeutic targets, cell death in cancer, inflammation-specific signaling, cell signaling pathways leading to regulated chromatin modifications, and transcriptional control. Part A focuses on basic research, and the chapters are divided into the following sections: apoptotic cell signaling mechanisms, extracellular matrix interactions, and MAP kinases.