Haiech, J.

Heizmann, C.

Krebs, J.

English

MPG.PuRe

Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1793 (2009) 931–932Contents lists available at ScienceDirectBiochimica et Biophysica Actaj ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r.com/ locate /bbamcrPrefaceThe 10th European Symposium on Calcium-Binding Proteins in Normal andTransformed CellsThe 10th European Symposium on Calcium-Binding Proteins inNormal and Transformed Cells was held at K.U. Leuven, one of theoldest University in Europe, from 17th–20th of September 2008. Themeeting was organized by our Belgian colleagues Humbert DeSmedt, Philippe Gailly, Bernd Nilius, Jan Parys, Roland Pochet,Thomas Voets and Frank Wuytack. They put together such anattractive program that more than 300 scientists from 26 differentcountries attended the meeting including participants from Austra-lia, Japan, and North- and South America. The scientific program wasdivided into 7 different symposia and 4 poster sessions with morethan 150 posters with the consequence that the poster prizes weredoubled! The meeting was opened with the first Sir MichaelBerridge Lecture delivered by Chikashi Toyoshima and sponsoredby Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. Toyoshima gave a fascinating in-depth view how the Ca2+-ATPase pumps ions across the sarcoplas-mic reticulum membrane.The meeting spanned a wide range of calcium-signaling pro-cesses starting with a whole session on calcium channels whichattract a more wide spread attention since an increasing number ischaracterized on the molecular level. Sessions on calcium-bindingproteins with special emphasis on the interaction of various S100proteins with their newly discovered target, the receptor foradvanced glycation endproducts (RAGE), were followed by sessionson Ca2+-dependent exocytosis and on various aspects of calciumpumps including the Golgi pump which can also transport Mn2+ asdiscovered in Leuven. Since Ca2+-signaling also plays an importantrole in plants a session was devoted to those aspects includingvoltage-gated calcium channels of the vacuole and protein kinasesinteracting with calcineurin-B like calcium sensors. After a tradi-tional session on different aspects of annexins several talks weregiven on the influence of calcium signaling on growth anddifferentiation, a topic of increasing importance and exciting newresults. The meeting ended with the Pflügers Archive lecturedelivered by Michael Berridge to celebrate the 25th anniversary ofhis seminal Nature paper in which he and his colleagues describedfor the first time the influence of IP3 on calcium signaling, a dis-covery which turned out to be a break through of calcium signalingin general.Several lectures pointed out a link between rare or commonpathologies and amodification of the calcium signal or genetic defectsof an element of the calcium signalosome. The importance of the0167-4889/$ – see front matter © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.doi:10.1016/j.bbamcr.2009.05.001calcium signal in disease was the basis to establish this meeting 20years ago. It is now a growing evidence.An impressive highlight of the meeting was the enormouscontribution of posters which were divided into 4 sessions andwhich demonstrated the wide range of topics influenced by calciumsignaling. The more than 150 posters were divided under 4 headings:(1) Plasma membrane channels and calcium entry, (2) Ca2+-bindingproteins, (3) Ca2+ in growth, development and death, and (4)Intracellular Ca2+ stores and Ca2+ signaling. A committee had thedifficult task to chose 1 poster out of each session for a poster prize,and the winners were: M. De Waard “The calcium channel Cavβ4subunit acts as an independent transcription factor”, N. Raetscho“Expression of zebrafish NCS coincides with visual function in thelarval retina”, M. Flourakis “Orai 1 downregulation: a missing link inunderstanding the prostate cancer apoptosis resistance”, and K.Rietdorf “Localisation of the putative NAADP-receptor”.In summary, this was an excellent, well organized and wellattended meeting and we are looking forward to the 11th ECS Calciummeeting which is going to be organized by Jacek Kuznicki and hiscolleagues at 5th-8th of September 2010 in Warsaw, Poland, thecountry of the late Witold Drabikowski who organized the firstinternational meeting on calcium-binding proteins and calciumfunction back in 1973. Already in 2009, from 3rd till 6th of June, thesecond ECS Workshop will take place in Smolenice, Slovakia, dealingwith some special aspects of different calcium-binding proteins.The ECS meeting in Leuvenwas mainly supported by the followingsponsors: Fonds National de la Recherché Scientifique, Fonds voorWetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, Novartis, Step'in, and alsoby Agfa Health Care, Analis, Elsevier, Heka Electronic Invitrogen, K.U.Leuven, Laborimpex, Molecular Devices, Olympus, Perkin-Elmer,Portland Press, Sopachem, Springer Verlag, Tebu-Bio, VWR, and Zeiss.Jacques Haiech, UMR7175, Ecole Supérieure de Biotechnologie deStrasbourg (ESBS) and Faculté de Pharmacie, Université de Strasbourg,Illkirch, France, e-mail address : haiech@pharma.u-strasbg.fr;Claus W. Heizmann, Division of Clinical Chemistry and Biochem-istry, Children's Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland,e-mail address: claus.heizmann@bluewin.ch;Joachim Krebs, NMR-based Structural Biology, MPI for BiophysicalChemistry, Göttingen, Germany, e-mail address: jkrebs@nmr.mpibpc.mpg.deDecember 2008Dr. Joachim Krebs has been working in thefield of calcium-binding and calcium-trans-porting proteins for many years. After receiv-ing his PhD from the University of Tübingen,Germany, he spent 2 years as a postdoctoralfellow in the Lab of Prof. R.J.P. Williams at theInstitute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Uni-versity of Oxford, UK. In 1977 he accepted aposition at the Institute of Biochemistry at theSwiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) inZurich, Switzerland. He has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous articles in international journalsand books in the field of calcium biochemistry and calcium signaling.After his retirement from the ETH he continued his research at theDepartment of NMR based Structural Biology of the Max PlanckInstitute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. Recently,he edited together with Marek Michalak from the University ofAlberta, Edmonton, Canada, the book “Calcium: A matter of life ordeath”, published by Elsevier in 2007.Dr. Jacques Haiech is a professor at the Schoolof Biotechnological Engineer of Strasbourg(FRANCE). He is also an expert in biotechnol-ogy and bioinformatics and acts as an expertcounselor of the French Ministry of Research inlife science domain. His main area of researchis the role of calmodulin in decipheringcalcium signal. He obtained his Master inmathematics in 1974 and his PhD in biochem-istry in 1978. In 1987 and 1993, he was avisiting associate professor of the Pharmacol-ogy Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, and avisiting professor at Northwestern University in the MolecularPharmacology Department, Chicago (USA). He is the author of morethan 150 scientific publications and awarded 'Chevalier de l'Ordre duMérite', a high French distinction for outstanding services to thecountry.Dr. Claus W. Heizmann is Professor of ClinicalBiochemistry at the University of Zurich inSwitzerland. He received his Diploma inChemistry from the University of Basel andhis Ph.D. degree in 1970 from the University ofKonstanz, Germany. Subsequently he wastrained as a post-doctoral fellow in thelaboratory of Dr. Edmond Fischer at theUniversity of Washington, Seattle and at theFederal Institute of Technology (ETH) inZurich. 1989-2007 he was Director of ClinicalChemistry and Biochemistry at the Department of Pediatrics at theUniversity of Zurich. His research focuses on the structure andfunctions of calcium-binding proteins and RAGE in health anddisease.932 Preface

The 10th European symposium on calcium-binding proteins in normal and transformed cells.

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