The Sixth International Symposium on Calcium-Binding Proteins in Health and Disease was held in Nagoya, Japan, July 24-28, 1988. Four hundred and seventy-two persons participated in this symposium. This large attendance is proof indeed of the growing interest in this field of research. Previous meetings were held in Jablonna, Poland in 1973; Ithaca, New York in 1977, Madison, Wisconsin in 1980; Trieste, Italy in 1983 and in Asilomar, California in 1986. The scientific program of this 1988 meeting included forty-one oral presentations given by invited specialists, ten round table presentations and one hundred and eighty-seven poster presentations. The program was set-up by the Organizing Committee and the members were Hidaka, H. (Japan), Forsen, S. (Sweden), Klee, C. B. (U. S. A. ), Means, A. R. (U. S. A. ), Norman, A. W. (U. S. A. ) and Sykes, B. D. (Canada). The members of the Advisory Committee, Carafoli, E. (Switzerland), Gergeley, J. (U. S. A. ), Kretsinger, R. H. (U. S. A. ), MacLennan, D. H. (Canada), Siegel, F. L. (U. S. A. ), Vanaman, T. C. (U. S. A. ), Wasserman, R. H. (U. S. A. ) and Williams, R. J. P. (England) provided important suggestions and advice to the Committee. This volume includes contents of the talks given by the invited speakers and some, but not all of the free communications. The contributions are grouped according to subject and based on the classification made by the editor.Signal Transduction and Protein Kinase C.- Molecular pharmacology of protein kinase C.- Protein kinase C in cell growth and differentiation.- Roles of protein kinase C isozymes in cellular regulation.- Activation of protein kinase C by short chain phospholipid micelles.- Inositol Phosphatides and Calcium Ion.- Inositol phosphate metabolism and cellular signal transduction.- Role of calcium released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum of smooth muscle cells as induced by inositol phosphatides.- Molecular Properties of the Calcium Pump.- The Calcium pump of the plasma membral¶