The Workshop at a Glance

The 2^nd FEBS Workshop on Redox Medicine, is dedicated to the theme “Connecting the Exposome with Redox Regulation in Health and Disease”, reflecting the importance of the emerging knowledge on the multifaceted interaction with the external environment, collectively termed the exposome. The workshop will cover the most recent data on the redox regulation of biological functions ranging from fundamental to clinical research as well as therapeutic applications also including sessions on the specific and sensitive tools and techniques to identify and quantify biological oxidants in complex biological settings properly. The speakers have been chosen to reflect different contributors to the exposome which modulate redox hemodynamics and impact human health and disease, including nutrition and diet, chemicals, physical factors, microorganisms, and lifestyle factors, while focusing on major cellular processes under redox regulation, including metabolism, epigenetics, transcription, cell death, and protein homeostasis.

This workshop aims to promote an environment in which young researchers (PhD students and postdocs) can interact with prominent senior researchers in the field of redox biology. To this purpose, we have designed a 3 and a half-day workshop including 2 special lectures at the start and the end. On the 3 full days, morning sessions will be dedicated to lectures by invited speakers and short presentations by participants selected from submitted abstracts. The afternoon sessions are designed to promote close interaction and discussion in a relaxed environment, with guided poster sessions, career development sessions, and a round table on the challenges faced by researchers in redox biology. From the posters, 5 will be selected for Flash Presentations on the last morning.

Join us in October at the Grand Hotel do Luso, Portugal for a thrilling adventure into the going field of Redox Medicine.

Ana Ledo and Bárbara Rocha
Course organizers

Why you should be interested in Redox Medicine:

Redox Biology can be considered a mature area within the field of Biochemistry, with pioneering early achievements including the discovery of the respiratory oxidative burst in phagocytes (Baldridge and Gerrard, 1930s; Sbarra and Karnovsky, 1959), the free radical scavenging by vitamin E (Mattil 1947; Tappel, 1953), enzymes such as thioredoxin (Asahi et al., 1961; Black et al. 1960) and superoxide dismutase (McCord and Fridovich, 1968 and 1969), and the elucidation of the signaling activities of small biological oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide (1970s and 1980s, multiple works) and nitric oxide (Ignarro et al. 1987; Palmer et al. 1987; Hibbs et al. 1987 and Garthwaite and Garthwaite, 1987). The relevance of this last discovery led to the attribution of a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998 to RF. Furchgott, LJ. Ignarro and F. Murad.

As the field has matured, it has shifted its attention from the effects of superphysiological concentrations of oxidants capable of non-specific damage to biomolecules (oxidative stress) to the dynamic redox regulation of signaling pathways observed for physiological concentrations. The advances in molecular cell biology and -omics techniques have more recently allowed the determination of the differential functions of reactive species as modulators of redox-sensitive pathways. Small reactive species such as hydrogen peroxide, nitric oxide, and superoxide radical, initially identified as deleterious oxidized species causing nonspecific damage to biomolecules, are now known to be produced by tightly controlled enzymatic reactions and are recognized as key players in interorganelle and intercellular signaling as well as the regulation of gene expression by interaction with multiple transcriptions factors such as NF-kB, STAT3, AP1, and Nrf2. This is translated into the concept of Redox Homeodynamics: continuous sensing of redox fluxes, redox transduction, and signal translation of cellular stress responses.

However, dysregulation of redox homeodynamics results in the transition from oxidative eustress to oxidative distress, commonly observed in several pathophysiological conditions. Hence the importance of redox biology in medicine, both from the physiological, but also the pathological perspective.

Accordingly, the signaling functions of redox compounds have been extensively exploited from fundamental to pre-clinical research, with their clinical relevance in areas such as cardiovascular pathophysiology, oncology, neurology, metabolism and autoimmunity being continuously unveiled. Redox Biology is emerging as a paradigm for biomedicineacross all disciplines, from microbiota to metabolic and brain diseases as well as aging. It is, as such, a central discipline in biochemistry.

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