This is an International Conference on Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors, following the very successful triennial Wellcome Trust-funded meetings held in Cambridge, UK, in 2008, 2011 and 2014. In fact, the initial steps of the organization of the nAChR 2017 conference were made in consultation with the organizers of the previous Cambridge meetings, who also participate in the International Advisory Board of the Conference. The conference will take place on the Greek island of Crete (May 7-11, 2017). The venue for the conference is a luxurious beachside hotel located at the cosmopolitan area of Platanias, 12km west of the picturesque town of Chania.

At the same time, the nAChR 2017 is a 30+1 year-anniversary conference of the two NATO Advanced Research Workshops on nAChRs and other ligand-gated ion channels organized by Alfred Maelicke (with Socrates Tzartos as co-organizer), also held in Greece, on the island of Santorini (May 19-23, 1986 and October 2-7, 1988). It is worth noticing that some of the participants of the Santorini conferences who have made major contributions in the field will meet again to discuss current advances with all other scientists.

The nAChR 2017 conference aims to cover the full spectrum of current research on nicotinic receptors, from genetic, molecular, structural, and cellular aspects to functional and behavioural studies. Current advances on the in-depth understanding of their structure, functionality and distinct pharmacology, which open the way to the design of novel drugs with high selectivity and specificity among the different nAChR subtypes, will be presented and discussed. In addition, major advancements on other pharmacologically important members of the Cys-loop superfamily, such as γ-aminobutyric acid and serotonin receptors will be presented, which may facilitate our further understanding of the nAChRs as well.

The successful format of the previous Cambridge conferences will be retained. The speakers’ list will include a small number of already invited speakers together with speakers to be selected from abstract submissions, in order to capture the latest research breakthroughs in the field of nAChRs. In addition, there will be two sessions of shorter talks mostly by postdocs and graduate students. Also, there will be two poster sessions and some poster lightning 2-minute talks', with posters on display throughout the conference.