The Motile and Contractile Systems Gordon Research Conference has long served as a preeminent venue for cytoskeleton research. The goal of the meeting is to foster interactions among scientists applying different approaches to understanding the means by which cells harness and modulate the cytoskeleton to dispatch processes such as cell division, cell locomotion, and cell shape change. Accordingly, the meeting attracts biochemists, cell biologists, bioengineers, geneticists, biophysicists, structural biologists, and mathematicians. Topics covered at the meeting include polymer assembly and disassembly, molecular motor function, cytokinesis, mitosis, cell crawling, morphogenesis, and wound healing. In addition, the 2017 meeting, subtitled "Cytoskeletal dynamics across scales and dimensions", will be generally concerned with the means by which cytoskeletal proteins, polymers and ensembles respond to differences in scale and how they respond to differences in dimensions and geometries.

The Motile and Contractile Systems GRC has a tradition of egalitarianism and, accordingly, invited speakers are drawn from the ranks of junior as well as senior investigators, and many talks are drawn from the abstracts, giving students and postdocs the opportunity to present their work. Further, the meeting has an associated Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) which has exclusively student and postdoc speakers [see "Related Meeting" section below]. Finally, the Motile and Contractile Systems GRC also has a tradition of interactive collegiality, with investigators, postdocs and students mixing freely and posing questions to each other, not only at talks and posters but also during meals and during the external activities.