Agmatine and Imidazoline Systems - Fourth International Symposium - 9-11 April 2003, San Diego, CA, USA

With approximately 70 participants, representing 11 countries from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia, the symposium was much smaller than meetings in previous years. The enthusiasm of the participants ensured that it was a highly interactive and productive meeting, which was dedicated to the memory of Donald J Reis. As a founding member of the scientific organizing group for these meetings, he was a major contributor to the imidazoline concept and the evolution of understanding their role in physiology. Not only were he and his team the first to discover the identity of the endogenous clonidine-displacing substance (CDS) to be agmatine (decarboxylated arginine), he was a pioneer and creative inspiration that will be sadly missed. Since the discovery of agmatine in 1994 (Li G et al Science (1994) 263(5149):966-969), this area of research has grown dramatically to a point where agmatine has been given a 'main theme' status for the meeting.