The recent identification of an expanded role of vitamin D action, beyond bone and mineral disorders, and the new investigational approaches, opened the interest of many researchers in this field. In addition to the classic vitamin D actions, a new spectrum of vitamin D activities that include important effects on cellular proliferation, differentiation, and the immune system has been identified. All these effects have led to a consideration of the potential application of vitamin D therapy to a wide range of diseases. Moreover, this therapeutic potential has conducted the pharmaceutical research to the discovery of new vitamin D analogs that might have a more favourable therapeutic profile, with less unfavourable effects such as hypercalcemia and hypercalciuria.

These new therapeutic applications range from renal disease (proteinuria and inflammation fibrosis) to psoriasis, from immunomodulation to cancer, from infectious disease to obesity and malnutrition, and from diabetes mellitus to cardiovascular disease. Moreover, studies on vitamin D receptor polymorphism showed that an altered signalling of vitamin D may lead to a particular predisposition to several diseases.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Interactions between vitamin D and renal disease
• Role of activation of vitamin D receptor (VDR) in cardiovascular disease
• Vitamin D and infectious disease: role in innate immunity
• Obesity and malnutrition: role of vitamin D status
• Immunomodulatory effects of vitamin D
• Role of polymorphisms of vitamin D
• Vitamin D in neoplastic disease
• Vitamin D, insulin sensitivity, and glucose metabolism
• Vitamin D and skin disease