Conference Description
The 2021 Carotenoid Gordon Research Conference (GRC) is a multidisciplinary meeting that addresses the biology of carotenoids and their derivatives apocarotenoids, in microorganisms, plants and mammals, including humans. Carotenoids are synthesized by all photosynthetic organisms and some non-photosynthetic microbes. Besides their vital role in photoprotection and light-harvesting, carotenoids are precursors of established and novel apocarotenoid hormones and regulatory metabolites involved in many aspects of plant's life, including development and intra-specific communications. Unable to synthesize carotenoids, mammals, including humans, obtain these pigments through the diet and convert them into retinoids (vitamin A and its derivatives). Indeed, biofortification of staple crops with carotenoids remains a major strategy to prevent the overwhelming public health issue of vitamin A deficiency (VAD). In addition, carotenoids are used by mammals as antioxidants and for pigmentation (as in macular pigment of the human fovea). Overall, dietary carotenoids and apocarotenoids provide a plethora of health benefits to humans, modulating vision, cognitive functions, embryonic development and growth, as well as preveting onset and development of chronic diseases.
The 2021 Carotenoid GRC will address the full spectrum of carotenoid research, fostering interdisciplinarity and transfer of research methods between different experimental systems. The majority of the nine sessions are organized to include speakers from different fields of carotenoid research (microbial/plant biology and biomedical research), and at least 40% of the presentations will be early career scientists, either as short talks selected from abstracts, or part of morning "poster previews" sessions. Cross-fertilization and exchange of ideas between different areas of carotenoid research will be the emphasis of this conference that aims at expanding our understanding of the roles of carotenoid in living organisms and human health. The GRC will be preceded by the 4th edition of the GRS, entirely organized by graduate students and postdocs to present and discuss frontier carotenoid research by early career scientists.
The topics, speakers, and discussion leaders for the conference sessions are displayed below. The conference chair is currently developing their detailed program, which will include the complete meeting schedule, as well as the talk titles for all speakers. The detailed program will be available by April 8, 2021. Please check back for updates.
Keynote Session: Carotenoids: From Plants to Mammals
Discussion Leaders
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Eleanore Wurtzel (Lehman College / The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA)
Speakers
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Pamela Ronald (University of California, Davis, USA)
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Johannes Von Lintig (Case Western Reserve University, USA)
Biosynthesis and Enzymology
Discussion Leaders
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Joseph Hirschberg (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Speakers
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Manuel Rodriguez-Concepcion (Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), Spain)
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Philip Kiser (University of California, Irvine, USA)
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Li Li (Agricultural Research Service, USDA / Cornell University, USA)
Vision and Pigmentation
Discussion Leaders
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Geoffrey Hill (Auburn University, USA)
Speakers
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Paul Bernstein (University of Utah, USA)
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Malgorzata Rozanowska (Cardiff University, United Kingdom)
Apocarotenoids and Signaling
Discussion Leaders
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Alexandra Dickinson (Duke University, USA)
Speakers
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Barry Pogson (Australian National University, Australia)
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M. Mahmood Hussain (NYU Winthrop Hospital, USA)
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Giovanni Giuliano (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Italy)
Carotenoids and Photosynthesis
Discussion Leaders
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Diana Kirilovsky (Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), Université Paris Saclay, France)
Speakers
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Roberto Bassi (University of Verona, Italy)
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Shizue Matsubara (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany)
Biofortification and Biotechnology
Discussion Leaders
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James Dale (Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy, Queensland University of Technology, Australia)
Speakers
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Lourdes Gomez-Gomez (University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)
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Sherry Tanumihardjo (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
Retinoids and Apocarotenoids Metabolism
Discussion Leaders
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Alexander Moise (Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Canada)
Speakers
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Marcin Golczak (Case Western Reserve University, USA)
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Shipra Vaishnava (Brown University, USA)
Carotenoids and Health
Discussion Leaders
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Xiang-Dong Wang (Tufts University, USA)
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Elizabeth Johnson (Tufts University, USA)
Speakers
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John Erdman (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
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John Nolan (Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland)
Carotenoids and Microorganisms
Discussion Leaders
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Gerhard Sandmann (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
Speakers
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Klara Hilscherova (RECETOX, Masaryk University, Czech Republic)
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Martin Lohr (Institute of Molecular Physiology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany)
