2021 Mitochondria in Health and Disease Gordon Research Conference

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PROJECT SUMMARY This application seeks partial funds to support the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Mitochondria in Health and Disease to be held August 8-13, 2021. This is the second in a new series of GRCs, which emerged from the growing awareness within the mitochondrial community of the need for a forum to capture and integrate a wide range of rapidly evolving areas of mitochondrial biology from the perspective of both basic and translational science. The GRC format is particularly suited for this forum because it provides a setting where cutting edge unpublished findings are presented in an inclusive environment that attracts experts across labs worldwide for a five-day conference. Time for discussions and networking are rigorously protected and encouraged in every scientific session and through free times in the afternoons. A setting where open discussion takes place encourages collaboration and is crucial to advancing the frontiers of mitochondrial science. In addition to accelerating mitochondrial research and promoting cross-disciplinary collaborations, the conference is committed to enhance visibility and participation of women scientists and minorities. As such, 44% of confirmed speakers and 44% of discussion leaders in the conference program are women. In addition, short talks from abstracts will be prioritized to feature research by early career scientists, trainees, women and minorities. Moreover, a GRC-sponsored Power Hour, which is an open communication forum, is scheduled early during the conference to discuss challenges surrounding diversity in science. Another conference objective is to train graduate students and postdocs in mitochondrial science and provide networking and informal mentoring opportunities to enrich their career development. The format of the 2021 conference consists of 9 scientific sessions each composed of 3 full talks and one short talk selected from abstracts, as well as 4 two-hour poster sessions. The scientific sessions will have an integrative focus on novel molecular, cellular and organismal aspects of mitochondrial bioenergetics and metabolism, redox regulation, genome integrity, protein biogenesis, and proteostasis, and mitochondria-based crosstalk mechanisms via carrier systems as well as interorganellar communications. Each session has a mixture of talks ranging from fundamental biologic mechanisms to physiology/pathophysiology. As such, the program includes highly diverse topics while featuring frontiers of knowledge gained from a broad range of approaches, experimental systems and tissue types, as well as investigation of multiple diseases involving alterations in mitochondrial function. The scientific sessions feature outstanding mitochondrial biologists ranging from established investigators to early career scientists whose cutting-edge research has had high impact in the fields of aging, cancer, diabetes and obesity, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and inborn errors of metabolism. Given the collective breadth of expertise and research interests within the mitochondrial community, we believe our program will catalyze productive cross-disciplinary interactions to propel the field forward.