Proceedings of the XII Biennial Meeting of the Society for Free Radical Research Society

PUNTARULO SUSANA; BOVERIS ALBERTO

Medimond srl

Lugar: Bologna; Año: 2004 p. 398

88-7587-109-4

Editorial Proceedings XII Biennial Meeting of the Society for Free Radical Research International The XII Biennial Meeting of the Society for Free Radical Research International ? SFRR held on May 5-9, 2004 at Buenos Aires, Argentina, gathered a numerous members of the free radical research scientific community. Scientifically sound information, fruitful discussions and exchange of experience among participants, gave a relevant profile to this meeting that could be considered as a contribution of the ´Argentine School of Free Radical Research´ to the general knowledge of the role of free radicals in biochemistry, physiology and pathology. This effort has been successfully complete by the enthusiastic contribution of a great number of young scientists that besides their scientific participation in the meeting, have put long hours on helping with the organization of the event. The celebration of the meeting coincides with the 50 anniversary of the paper ´Oxygen poisoning and X-ray irradiation: a mechanism in common´ by Gerschman and co-workers that appeared in Science 119: 623-626, on May 7, 1954. Gerschman was, with her pioneering ideas, the initiator of the Argentine research on free radicals. We consider her work as the intellectual milestone of these aspects of research and we feel that this meeting was a recognition to her visionary approach to science. We are proud to see ourselves as the heirs of her passion for knowledge. In the organization of the meeting it was merged the interest of several scientific societies: the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology IUBMB), the American Physiological Society (Bethesda), the Physiological Society (London), the Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine, the Molecular and Cell Biology Network-UNESCO and the Linus Pauling Institute. Fortunately, as a result of this broad spectrum of interests the program of the meeting included a wide variety of aspects. By reading the table of contents of this issue, it is clear that substantially new information is gathered in this publication. The Proceedings includes manuscripts that deal with different subjects, from biochemical studies on reactions of oxygen and nitrogen reactive species to biologically active antioxidants, and several aspects of nitric oxide metabolism, such as the role of nitric oxide in cell biology, mitochondrial function, interaction with iron, role in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation and apoptosis. Moreover, key aspects in the broad field of free radicals in plant biochemistry and physiology were included, and a new chapter, to this scientific audience, such as free radical reactions in ectotherms is presented in this issue. As Gerschman wrote, ´Nature does not easily yield its secrets, what seems the answer to a research inquiry is only the beginning of scrutinizing new aspects of the problem´. This issue presents the current partial answers to inquires on the molecular mechanisms of oxidative stress, oxidative and nitrosative damage, and metabolic disorders and disease. The exciting times of discovery and the reflection times of reviewing and summarizing are parts of the same scientific endeavor in its slow progress toward knowledge. Dr. Susana Puntarulo Dr. Alberto Boveris Editor                                       Editor