PLENARY LECTURES

1. John Aitchison (USA) jaitchis@systemsbiology.org


Focusing on the peroxisome, Dr. Aitchison merges the traditional fields of cell biology and biochemistry with new high-throughput technologies and computational biology to bring about an understanding of how the three-dimensional architecture of the cells imparts control over cellular function.

2. Monique Bolotin-Fukuhara (France) bolotin@igmors.u-psud.fr


I have been interested for a long time (and still am) in mitochondrial function and biogenesis with special focus on mitochondrial diseases related to translation defects. My interests have evolved to include regulation of mitochondrial function and is now centered to comparative functional genomics of carbon and oxygen metabolism in yeasts.

3. Aaron Ciechanover (Israel) c_tzachy@netvision.net.il


Dr. Aaron Ciechanover shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Drs. Avram Hershko and Irwin A. Rose, for discovering the ubiquitin proteolytic system. They have demonstrated that ATP-dependent covalent conjugation of multiple molecules of ubiquitin targets the substrate to degradation by a downstream protease (later identified by others as the 26S proteasome), purified the conjugating enzymes, and deciphered their mechanism. Later studies by Aaron Ciechanover – in collaboration with Drs. Alexander Varshavsky and Daniel Finley - suggested a role for the system in regulating cell cycle and opened the road for dissecting the involvement of the system in numerous cellular processes.

4. James M. Cregg (USA) James_Cregg@kgi.edu


Sceintific interests: the development and use of a yeast, Pichia pastoris, as a system for the production of recombinant proteins. His work has had a major impact on the development of pharmaceutical proteins such as a vaccine against hepatitis B; human serum albumin, a component for an artificial blood plasma; and the anti-angiogenic proteins, angiostatin and endostatin that have garnered attention for their potential anti-cancer properties. He also studies mechanisms of peroxisome biogenesis and degradation in yeasts

5. Thomas Jeffries (USA) twjeffri@wisc.edu


Main scientific interests are the regulation of xylose alcoholic fermentation in the recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae and natural xylose-utilizing yeast Pichia stipitis. Of particular interest is yeast metabolic engineering for construction of more robust efficient producers of ethanol from lignocellulosic sugars.

6. Alan Hinnebusch (USA) alanh@mail.nih.gov


Scientific interests include transcriptional and translational control mechanisms and signal transduction pathways in nutrient control of gene expression.

7. Valter Longo(USA) vlongo@usc.edu


We are interested in identifying the genetic pathways responsible for
the regulation of life span in S. cerevisiae and in the mechanisms that mediate aging. In particular we are interested in the regulation of metabolic pathways and of age-dependent genomic instability. We are now also testing the role of genes and pathways similar to those identified in yeast on the regulation of aging in higher eukaryotes.

8. Yoshinori Ohsumi (Japan) yohsumi@nibb.ac.jp

9. Kevin Struhl (USA) kevin@hms.harvard.edu

We work on transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in yeast and human cells, using a combination of molecular biology, genetics, and genomics. Of particular interest is the relationship between transcription and chromatin structure, and epigenetic inheritance.

10. Suresh Subramani (USA) ssubramani@ucsd.edu

11. Johan Thevelein (Belgium) johan.thevelein@bio.kuleuven.be


Main scientific interests are the molecular mechanisms involved in nutrient sensing and signaling in yeast, trehalose metabolism and stress tolerance, the development of novel industrial yeast strains for bioethanol production, beer, wine and bakery applications, and the use of yeast as a model and tool to study mammalian genes with medical interest.