This proposal requests support for a Gordon Research conference on Thiol-based Redox Regulation and Signaling to be held May 9-14, 2010 at Il Ciocco in Italy. The field of redox biology is key to the biomedical sciences as an increasing number of cellular functions and impairments are found linked to redox processes. Central to redox control are systems that utilize thiols to perform redox chemistry. Thiol-containing proteins are major antioxidants in cells and reversible oxidation of thiols in various phosphatases, kinases and transcription factors links thiol-based redox chemistry to phosphorylation-based signaling, apoptosis, gene regulation, cell cycle control and other processes and pathways. Dysregulation of thiol-based redox homeostasis has major implications for the onset and progression of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and other complex diseases and is a significant component of the process of aging. This conference is in its third cycle after a two very successful meetings in the U.S. and Italy in 2006 and 2008. The chair and vice-chair for this meeting are a physician scientist and a basic researcher, respectively, and are representative of the biologists, chemists and clinicians working on varied aspects of the field. This conference provides a venue for the free exchange of ideas and methodologies (the latter often limits progress in this particular field). While the thematic area of the conference is broad-based, its relevance to cancer, cardiovascular diseases and aging is well represented programmatically. By bringing together investigators with varied expertise in biophysical methods, bioinformatics and animal model systems, with physicians focused on disease processes, the meeting is expected to further stimulate collaborations and catalyze scientific progress as has been exemplified by the successes of the previous meetings.
Many cellular functions rely on processes that involve changes in redox properties of particular molecules within the cell, and the dysregulation of these processes is a major component of the onset and progression of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and aging. One amino acid in proteins, in particular, cysteine, is central to these redox changes, although very few molecular details of which redox changes occur during normal and pathological processes are known. This conference brings together chemists, biologists and clinicians to promote the sharing of different levels of understanding of thiol-dependent processes and move the field forward with such important interactions.
