The VIII International Congress on Stress Proteins in Biology and Medicine: <Emphasis Type="Italic">täynnä henkeä</Emphasis>

About 150 international scientists gathered in Turku, Finland, in August of 2017 for the eighth in a series of international congresses about the roles of stress proteins in biology and medicine. The scientific theme and title of the 2017 Congress was “Stress Management Mechanisms and Pathways.” The meeting covered a broad range of topics, reflecting the wide scope of the Cell Stress Society International (CSSI) and highlighting the numerous recent breakthroughs in stress response biology and medicine. The keynote lecturers included Marja Jäättelä, Richard Morimoto, Anne Bertolotti, and Peter Walter. The Executive Council of the CSSI elected new Fellows and Senior Fellows. The Spirit of Budapest Award was presented to Peter Csermely, Wolfgang Schumann, and Subhash Lakhotia in recognition of pioneering service contributions to the CSSI. The CSSI Medallion for Career Achievement was awarded to Larry Hightower and CSSI president Gabriella Santoro proclaimed Tuesday, August 15, 2017, Robert M. Tanguay Day at the congress in recognition of Robert’s many years of scientific accomplishment and work on behalf of the CSSI. Additional special events were the awarding of the Ferruccio Ritossa Early Career Award to Serena Carra and the Alfred Tissières Young Investigator Award to Ayesha Murshid. As is the tradition at CSSI congresses, there were social events that included an exciting piano performance by a trio of young Finnish pianists, at the Sibelius Museum.     

Latin America multidisciplinary research on heat shock proteins and cell stress: proceedings of the first conference of the Latin America Chapter of the Cell Stress Society International

The First Conference of the Latin America Chapter of the Cell Stress Society International (CSSI) organized by CSSI was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, on March 11–14, 2014. The Latin America Chapter of the CSSI (LAC-CSSI) was established at the Workshop on the Molecular Biology of the Stress Response, Porto Alegre, Brazil, May 2012. The chapter’s first meeting took place in the beautiful city of Montevideo and was chaired by the first (LAC-CSSI) elected president Professor María Bausero. Forty-two invited speakers presented their work to more than 100 scientists. The first day of the conference was dedicated to an introductory program for students, young investigators, and participants new to the field of molecular chaperones and the stress response. These seminars were held in the Pasteur Institute of Montevideo and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of the Republic. These institutions were carefully selected to give foreign participants a broad view of the diversity of students and institutions doing research in Uruguay, as well as an opportunity for direct interaction with our scientists and students. Invited speakers for the seminar series were Dr. Wolfgang Schumann, Dr. Cristina Bonorino, Dr. Antonio De Maio, Dr. Ian Brown, Dr. Rafael Radi, Dr. Daniel Ciocca, and Dr. Celia Quijano. The remaining days of the conference took place at the Sheraton Hotel in Montevideo, and the scientific sessions are discussed below.     

Stress at the Korean Mountains: meeting report of the 8th International Workshop on the Molecular Biology of Stress Responses

South Korea is a country exemplified by a combination of upscale new technology and ancient mysticism. The busy streets of Seoul hustle and bustle like any large, active metropolis, yet the city's inhabitants radiate an intrinsic sense of peace, creating a timeless atmosphere. The combination of emerging technology and profound respect for the Korean culture and heritage makes this country a unique environment in which to organize a successful scientific meeting. Cell Stress Society International, in its quest to cross the cultural frontiers of science and propagate research on the stress response, partnered with the newly created Korean Cell Stress Society to hold the 8th International Workshop on the Molecular Biology of Stress Responses on June 1–4, 2010.     

Stress and health Huangshan-style

The Seventh International Congress of the Cell Stress Society International (CSSI) was held as a joint meeting with the newly organized committee of Stress Physiology, the Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences (CAPS). There were over 200 colleagues and their students in attendance from 22 different countries. The topics of the congress were core scientific areas in the field of stress and health. The keynote speakers were Fu-Chu He (China), E.R. (Ron) de Kloet (The Netherlands), and Kazuhiro Nagata (Japan). The CSSI Medallion for Career Achievement in the cell stress and chaperones field was awarded to Kazutoshi Mori (Japan). Twelve student post awards were given in recognition of a very high quality poster session. In the tradition of this series of congresses, cultural events were an important part of the program. In addition, participants became better acquainted during trips to the ancient shopping street, an evening at the Chinese opera, and a lesson in Tai Chi from a master. The first groups of CSSI Fellows and Senior Fellows were presented their rosettes and certificates during the congress.     

Announcing the call for the Special Issue on the 20th International Congress of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB)—virtual meeting,October 2021

This Commentary describes a call for submissions for the upcoming Special Issue focused on the science presented at the 20^th IUPAB Congress to be held in conjunction with the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 20^th International IUPAB Congress will take place as a virtual meeting this year from October 4 to 8, 2021. This triennial IUPAB Congress will be held in loose conjunction with the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. To act as a complement to this virtual meeting, the Biophysical Reviews journal will base a Special Issue on the scientific topics of the meeting contributors selected from the range of invited speakers and poster presenters. This Special Issue will also work to highlight the host country’s (Brazil) National Biophysical Society. Finally, this Special Issue will also serve to publish the meeting abstracts in supplemental form.Review articles from IUPAB Congress speakers and poster presenters to the IUPAB Congress and associated conferences (the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) are solicited. Similar to the SI based on the 19^th IUPAB Congress held in Edinburgh summarizing Commentaries from session chairs are also requested (Hall and dos Remedios 2017). The Special Issue for the 20^th IUPAB International Congress will be prepared and edited by the current authors (Rosangela Itri, Mauricio Baptista, Richard Garratt, and Antonio Jose Costa-Filho).     

Acculturative Stress and Influential Factors among International Students in China: A Structural Dynamic Perspective

Stress represents a prominent aspect of modern life and is associated with numerous negative health consequences. International students are a key force in shaping globalization. However, these students often experience acculturative stress, influencing their health and well-being. The growing number of international students in China emerges as a new global health challenge and presents an opportunity to advance our understanding of acculturative stress. This study aims to investigate the acculturative stress of international students in China, and verify the mechanism and influential factors of acculturative stress. We analyzed survey data from 567 international students attending universities in Wuhan, China. We used a network-based analytical approach to assess the structure of the Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students and used regression analysis to assess the relationships between acculturative stress and theoretically related factors. We found that higher levels of acculturative stress were reported by students from Asia and Africa than from other regions (Europe/America/Oceania). Lower acculturative stress was reported by unmarried students than others and by students well prepared than not well prepared. We verified seven acculturative stress subconstructs: rejection, identity threat, opportunity deprivation, self-confidence, value conflict, cultural competence, and homesickness; and discovered a three-dimensional network structure of these subconstructs. Our results suggest that acculturative stress was more common among international students in China than in developed countries. Acculturative stress was also more common among international students who did not well prepared, married, and belonged to an organized religion. African and Asian students'' stress was higher than that for students from other regions. Acculturative stress prevention programs should seek to improve preparedness of the international students for studying abroad and pay extra attention to the high risk subgroups.     

Meeting report from the 7th International Melanoma Congress, Sydney, November, 2010

The 2010 7th International Melanoma Congress sponsored by the Society for Melanoma Research and held in Sydney, Australia, was held together with the International Melanoma and Skin Cancer Centers group and the International Melanoma Pathology Study Group. As a consequence, there were over 900 registrants that included a wide range of clinicians (surgeons, medical oncologists, dermatologists) specialising in the management of melanoma as well as scientists and students carrying out laboratory-based research in melanoma. There was a general consensus that this grouping of clinicians, pathologists and scientists was mutually advantageous and plans are afoot to continue this grouping in future meetings. The meeting was dominated by the advances being made in treatment of melanoma with selective BRAF inhibitors but interest in epithelial mesenchymal transition and phenotypic changes in melanoma was apparent in many of the talks. The authors have attempted to capture many of the new developments in melanoma research but apologize to those speakers and poster presenters who had equally important findings not captured in these summaries.     

Stress symposium in Johannesburg: plants versus humans

On 18 February 1998, a ‘Stress symposium’ was held at the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The meeting brought together people from both the plant and the human oxidative stress field, which was exemplified by a talk entitled ‘Heat shock proteins in host-pathogen interactions: plants versus humans’. There were moments when it appeared as if the main difference between plants and humans was, as sung by Julos Beaucarne, that ‘the human plant is the only one to be able to water itself…’     

A History of the Origin and Development of Japanese Society for Neurochemistry: International Cooperation to Overcome Dementia and Mental Illness

“Neurochemistry” in Japan was established by intensive cooperation between psychiatrists and their collaborators, biochemists, who have sought to investigate the etiology of mental illness to establish treatments. It was a completely different direction from the flow of modern biochemistry that was born using microorganisms or eukaryotic cells as research materials. Neurochemists aimed to elucidate the physiological or pathological functions of the brain through chemical analysis of the morphologically and functionally unique complexity and characteristics of brain. I here describe some of the origin and history of neurochemistry in Japan how researchers estabIished Japanese Society for Neurochemistry in1958 Yasuzo Tsukada as a president in collaboration with Isamu Sano, Genkichiro Takagaki and Masanori Kurokawa. The formation of research groups with the support of MEXT played a major role in promoting neurochemistry. Many international conferences held in Japan promoted the activity of neurochemistry: The International Society of Physiology (Tokyo) in 1965, and the Japan-US Neurochemistry Conference (Oiso) in 1965, and in 1967 the International Conference on Biochemistry (Tokyo). These meetings offered excitements to younger researchers by close interaction with the world top class researchers. Government established Brain Research Institutes in several national universities. The Asia–Pacific Society for Neurochemistry (APSN) was established in 1991 subsequent to an initiative by JSN. APSN presidents: Yasuzo Tsukada, Kazuhiro Ikenaka, and Akio Wanaka contributed to promote neurochemistry. The 4th ISN meeting was organized at Tokyo (Yasuzo Tsukada, president) in 1973 and the 15th ISN meeting at Kyoto (Kinya Kuriyama, president) in 1995. Kunihiko Suzuki and Kazuhiro Ikenaka as ISN Presidents greatly contributed in promoting the activity of ISN.

     

Novel targets for cancer and connective tissues diseases: A meeting sponsored by the International CCN Society

Abstracts

Novel targets for cancer and connective tissues diseases: A meeting sponsored by the International CCN Society Coast Coal Harbour Hotel, Vancouver, BC, Canada (September 24–27, 2011)     

CSSI workshop in Brazil highlights “Stress Responses in the Nervous System” in relation to neurodegenerative diseases and neuroprotection

A review is provided of the two neuroscience sessions entitled “Stress Responses in the Nervous System” that were presented at the ninth Cell Stress Society International Workshop on the “Molecular Biology of the Stress Response” held in Port Alegre, Brazil, May 27–30, 2012. The sessions were organized and chaired by Ian R. Brown (Toronto, Canada) and Maria Estela Andrés (Santiago, Chile).     

A brief history of the Annual International symposium on Respiratory Psychophysiology and summary of the 1993 workshops

This article traces the history of the Annual International Symposium on Respiratory Psychophysiology from its origins in the late 1970s at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, U.K., to the September 1993 symposium in London, U.K. (sponsored by the Department of Medicine of the Westminster and Charing Cross Medical School), where the formation of the International Society for the Advancement of Respiratory Psychophysiology (ISARP) was announced, along with plans for a new, associated journal, Breathing Research and Therapy.The workshops, symposia, participants, and publications generated since the first formal meeting in 1981 are listed. This article also provides a summary of the 1993 workshops and a request for information concerning membership and future meetings of ISARP.     

The second International Symposium on Fungal Stress: ISFUS

The topic of ‘fungal stress’ is central to many important disciplines, including medical mycology, chronobiology, plant and insect pathology, industrial microbiology, material sciences, and astrobiology. The International Symposium on Fungal Stress (ISFUS) brought together researchers, who study fungal stress in a variety of fields. The second ISFUS was held in May 8-11 2017 in Goiania, Goiás, Brazil and hosted by the Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública at the Universidade Federal de Goiás. It was supported by grants from CAPES and FAPEG. Twenty-seven speakers from 15 countries presented their research related to fungal stress biology. The Symposium was divided into seven topics: 1. Fungal biology in extreme environments; 2. Stress mechanisms and responses in fungi: molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, and cellular biology; 3. Fungal photobiology in the context of stress; 4. Role of stress in fungal pathogenesis; 5. Fungal stress and bioremediation; 6. Fungal stress in agriculture and forestry; and 7. Fungal stress in industrial applications. This article provides an overview of the science presented and discussed at ISFUS-2017.     

A special issue of the Australian society for Biophysics

On behalf of the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB) and the Editors of this Special Issue, I would like to express our appreciation to Editor-in-Chief, Damien Hall, for arranging the publication of this Special Issue. The ASB is about five times smaller than our sister the Biophysical Society for Japan (BSJ) and tenfold smaller than the US Biophysical Society (USBS), but our meetings are notable because of the encouragement the Society gives to emerging biophysicists. It can be a terrifying experience for a PhD student to have to face a roomful of professors and senior academics, but invariably they appreciate the experience. Another feature of the ASB meetings is the inclusion of contributions from the Asian Pacific region. We now have formal ties with our New Zealand colleagues and our meetings with the BSJ contain joint sessions (see below). In 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19 (see Adam Hill’s Commentary), there is a joint session with the University of California Davis. This Special Issue comprises 2 Editorials, 3 Commentaries, and 25 reviews.

When we began to put together an editorial on the contributions to this Special Issue of the 44th meeting of the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB), we were struck by the sheer diversity of what we call “Biophysics”. Biophysics is actually not easy to define. The glib answer is “Biophysics is what biophysicists do”, but what do they do? If we asked an Australian Minister for Science to tell us what biophysicists do, he or she could tell us what immunologists and virologists do, but would probably have no idea what a biophysicist does. So how should we explain biophysics to the Minister? The US Biophysical Society defines “biophysics” as the field that applies the theories and methods of physics to understand how biological systems work. Operationally, biophysicists analyse the structure of biological molecules like DNA and proteins, they develop computer models to understand how drugs bind to the receptors in the body, and they investigate how gene mutations change the function of proteins.We thought a good example of biophysics research is the article by Boris Martinac at the beginning of this Special Issue. Boris has worked for much of his research life on trying to figure out how a mechanosensitive ion channel works. His “babies” are molecules encoded by the MscL and MscS genes and more recently also by the Piezo1 gene. He realised that bacteria needed to have sensors embedded in their surface membrane so they can quickly produce electrical or chemical signals in response to a mechanical force which occurs in the form of osmotic pressure. This of course is what enables the bacterium to survive when exposed to a hypoosmotic shock. More recently he and his colleagues turned their attention to investigating whether Piezo1 channels are the inherently mechanosensitive channels in vertebrates (Syeda et al. 2016) like MscL and MscS channels are in bacteria. They explained how Piezo receptors respond to changes in mechanical curvature of the cell membranes that open non-specific cation channels, thereby generating an electrical signal. In 2013 Boris was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in recognition of his discovery of bacterial mechanosensitive channels and the physical principles of mechanosensitive channel gating. More recently his work has expanded into the roles of mechanosensitive channels in nerves and heart disease. While we all hope he would get the “big” prize in science, it was his colleague, Ardem Patapoutian, who was awarded a share for the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on Piezo1 and Piezo2.The 44th meeting of the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB) was notable for two other reasons. It was either despite the fact or because it was a virtual meeting that the Society concurrently ran an international symposium with our sister society in Japan the Japanese Society for Biophysics. There is a close connection between the ABS and JSB. For years they have encouraged Australian biophysicists to travel to the large JSB meetings in Japan and they regularly send a strong contingent to Australia. A lot of hard work was put in by Kumiko Hayashi and her colleagues Risa Shibuya and Emi Hibino and the meeting attracted Japanese biophysicists from Tsukuba, Osaka, Kyoto, Shinjuku, Okayama, Kawasaki and Nagoya.The Society also hosted a virtual Early Career Researcher symposium which involved ASB and the University of California Davis. This was chaired by Dr Adam Hill and we refer you to his Commentary where he writes about the challenges and successes of running a virtual meeting “Biophysics in the time of COVID”.The ASB has had a long-standing policy to encourage presentations from early career biophysicists, even as early as PhD students. These young biophysicists prepare carefully and seem to enjoy what can be a terrifying experience. Professor Jamie Vandenberg moderated a session on careers in biophysics where participants discussed the latest technology in ultrasound, the Victor Chang Innovation Centre, strategies for careers outside of traditional biophysics, the importance of scientific communication and advocacy, and the importance intellectual property law, and finally, there were some encouraging words on a career in biophysics from Boris Martinac.Our friends across the “ditch” in New Zealand had a session that discussed calcium imaging in mouse models of disease, the impact fibrosis on Ca signalling, high-content super-resolution microscopy, effects of ryanodine receptor clustering on arrhythmia, the impact of fibrosis on cardiac Ca signalling, how N-glycans affect shear force activation of Na channels, and a fascinating analysis of how insects have managed to adapt their flight muscles to achieve high-frequency flapping flight.The meeting finished with a presentation of the McAuley-Hope prize for a biophysicist who crosses boundaries in biophysics and develops new techniques and methods. It is not always presented but Dr Till Boecking at the University of New South Wales was the well-deserved winner of this much sought-after Prize.     

Oxidative Mechanisms in Neurodegenerative Disorders. Proceedings from a satellite symposium, Guilin, China, 7-11 February 2004

This special issue of Molecular Neurobiology presents a series of mini-reviews resulting from an ISN satellite symposium entitled Oxidative Mechanisms in Neurodegenerative Disorders Held at the Guilin Park Hotel, Guilin, China on February 7-11, 2004. The timely topics in this symposium were contributed by more than 20 internationally acclaimed scientists and attended by more than 100 participants interested in this subject matter. This satellite symposium was also part of the 6th Biennial Asian-Pacific Society for Neurochemistry (APSN) meeting held in Hong Kong, China. Organizers included Dr. Piu Chan (Capital University of Medical Sciences and Beijing Institute of Geriatrics) Dr. Albert Y. Sun and Dr. Grace Y. Sun (University of Missouri, Columbia, MO). The satellite meeting was hosted by Xuanwu Hospital of Capital University of Medical Sciences and Guilin Medical College, and was generously supported by the following: the International Society of Neurochemistry (ISN), National Institutes of Health (USA) (1 R13 NS047414), the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) VA Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN, USA, The Chinese Society of Neuroscience, Chinese Medical Association, Chinese Journal of Neurology, Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals Ltd., and Beijing QuiXave United Technology Ltd. Corporation.     

2017: beginning of a new era for Chlamydia research in China and the rest of the world

The First Chinese Chlamydia Research Meeting was held in Lanzhou, China in May 2017, 60 years after the disclosure of reproducible isolation of Chlamydia trachomatis by 汤飞凡 (Fei-fan Tang). We report current state of the Chlamydia research community in China, and briefly review recent progress in Chlamydia vaccinology. The meeting represents a new milestone for Chlamydia research in the country. The Chinese Chlamydia Research Society (CCRS) was formed during the meeting. Future meetings will be held biennially and should facilitate collaboration of Chinese researchers with their domestic and international colleagues.     

Spatial Localization and Binding of the Probiotic Lactobacillus farciminis to the Rat Intestinal Mucosa: Influence of Chronic Stress

The present study aimed at detecting the exogenously applied probiotic Lactobacillus farciminis in rats, after exposure to IBS-like chronic stress, based on 4-day Water Avoidance Stress (WAS). The presence of L. farciminis in both ileal and colonic mucosal tissues was demonstrated by FISH and qPCR, with ileum as the preferential niche, as for the SFB population. A different spatial distribution of the probiotic was observed: in the ileum, bacteria were organized in micro-colonies more or less close to the epithelium whereas, in the colon, they were mainly visualized far away from the epithelium. When rats were submitted to WAS, the L. farciminis population substantially decreased in both intestinal regions, due to a stress-induced increase in colonic motility and defecation, rather than a modification of bacterial binding to the intestinal mucin Muc2.     

The VIIIth International Congress on Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasma gondii is an important protozoan parasite of mammals and birds. Infection by T. gondii can lead to severe disease in both veterinary and human medicine. In most individuals, acute infection with T. gondii is asymptomatic or causes mild symptoms. The incidence of toxoplasmosis can be higher than 80% in some countries, and it has been estimated that one-third of the world's population has already been infected by T. gondii. The VIII^th International Congress on Toxoplasmosis, organized by Ermanno Candolfi, Marie France Cesbron, Marie Laure Dardé, Jean-François Dubremetz, and Stanislas Tomavo, was held from May 27 to 31, 2005 in Corsica, France. At this meeting, 120 investigators from 20 countries presented 127 scientific reports, mainly on T. gondii, with a special emphasis on topics that are relevant to other apicomplexan parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum and Eimeria tenella. The research presented dealt with molecular and clinical epidemiology, motility and invasion, host–pathogen interplay, stage differentiation, immunology, and the relevance to other apicomplexans.