We request funds to support the travel expenses and registration fees of select attendees of the 2024 American Society for Matrix Biology (ASMB) Workshop on Basement Membranes, to be held from April 11th to April 13th, 2024, at The University of Manchester in Manchester, United Kingdom. The funds will be used to cover registration and travel expenses of post- and pre-doctoral trainees, underrepresented scientists, and invited speakers who are junior investigators. The workshop will be jointly chaired by Dr. Roy Zent of Vanderbilt Medical Center and Dr. Jeffrey Miner of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. This will be the fourth in a series of highly successful Basement Membranes workshop (the previous ones being held in 2010, 2017 and 2019), and it serves as the only international forum dedicated to the dissemination of new ideas and information about the structure and biological functions of basement membranes (BMs). The principal Aims of the 2024 Workshop on Basement Membranes are: 1. To communicate and disseminate new data and concepts concerning known and novel basement membrane components and their biological activities both in vitro and in vivo. 2. To promote the careers of junior scientists, women, and under-represented minorities (URM). 3. To increase interactions and collaborations among basic research groups, clinical research groups, and pharmaceutical or biotechnology firms interested in BMs or extracellular matrix constituents, their receptors, or their signaling pathways (e.g., in the context of stem cell research, tissue regeneration, cancer/metastasis, kidney, muscle, and skin development and function, and the cardiovascular system). 4. To foster new collaborative ventures between investigators working in distinct model systems, using the BM as the unifying theme that is ideally suited to transcend traditional intellectual barriers between defined fields. 5. To provide an open forum and a stimulating atmosphere for discussion of new hypotheses and approaches, and to facilitate and encourage exchange of reagents such as antibodies, cell lines and transgenic animals. 6. To provide a collegial and highly interactive atmosphere in which both junior and senior investigators wishing to enter this field may interact with established researchers in the area. 7. To create a supportive and contact-enhancing environment that allows junior scientists to freely exchange thoughts with their more established senior colleagues, to present their own work to their peers, and to raise their profile by giving them the opportunity to speak in sessions alongside internationally renowned authorities. 8. To promote increased commercial and biotechnological interest in this highly productive and increasingly important research field, which is at the forefront of the life sciences and has considerably more commercial and translational potential than is currently being realized.