Impressions from the 6th Metallomics Symposium

After the last conference in Beijing, this issue brought the symposium back to Europe. With respect to participation, the 6th issue could not attract as many participants as former events (Nagoya: 400, Münster: 320, Oviedo: 280). Anyhow, the scientific program was interesting and mirrored nicely the interdisciplinary area of metallomics with contributions from analytical scientists as well as researchers from life science. Most foreign researchers came from Germany (29), Japan (25), UK (13), Spain (11), China (10), Poland (8) and USA (8).

Photo: Vienna University

The symposium was opened already on Sunday late afternoon in the historical "large ceremonial chamber" of the main building of the University with welcoming words by the conference chairs Gunda Koellensperger and Bernhard Keppler. Two invited lectures by Bob Crichton ("A journey through the world of iron") and Christian Obinger ("From innate immunity to hormone and extracellular matrix biosynthesis - how posttranslational modifications of the heme cofactor modulate catalysis of human peroxidases") introduced into the field of metallomics.

The format of the symposium starting on Monday followed a two stream set with invited lectures introducing the topic of the session. Ryszard Lobinski reviewed the analytical chemistry tools for metallomics while Thomas Walczyk discussed the brain iron uptake. The participants had to select where to go, since Tanja Schwerdtle opened the parallel stream by discussing the toxicological characterization of arsenolipids.

A short coffee break served in the inner yard of the university gave the opportunity to appreciate the nice weather, to contact the exhibitors or to chat with other participants.

The second session was opened by Maria Montes-Bayon with a presentation on nanostructured metallodrugs. Again the parallel session was devoted to toxicology and opened by Yasumitsu Ogra with a report on the toxicology of tellurium.

After the lunch break in the inner yard, the participants had the first opportunity to look at the posters which were exposed during the whole symposium.

The first afternoon session was opened by Clay Davis discussing the development of reference materials for metalloprotein measurements. Again the parallel session was devoted to toxicology, this time opened by Seiichiro Himeno, who discussed renal toxicity of heavy metals.

The second afternoon session devoted to analytical techniques was opened by Heidi Goenaga Infante who discussed the Interaction of Oxide Nanoparticles with Biological Systems. This time, the participants had a harder time to select the stream, since the parallel stream discussed very similar topics. Chunying Chen opened the parallel steam by discussing synchrotron-based techniques to study the interaction of nanoparticles with living systems. Unfortunately, it was not very easy to change from one stream to the other, since there was no time to change and also the timetable was not strictly followed.

After a long day, the participants had the opportunity to follow one of the short courses introducing into imaging techniques or tracer studies.

Tuesday was only partly devoted to the scientific program, since the afternoon was free for visiting Vienna. Norbert Jakubowski reported about metal detection at cellular levels, and Uwe Karst discussed the use of complementary techniques for imaging. Two further short courses introduced to elemental speciation and toxicology.

In the evening, most of the participants came together for the conference dinner that took place at the "Heurigen Welser". The perfect weather allowed to appreciate the young wine and the local style food during the whole evening outside in the garden.

After such a relaxing evening, it was certainly not easy to start the next day early in the morning at 8:15. Walter Berger had this difficult task to open the morning session related to metal based drugs with a discussion of molecular mechanisms of resistance against anticancer drugs.

The session was continued after the coffee break with an invited lecture by Paul Dyson on "the influence of RAPTA-T on the tumour microenvironment". A parallel session on plant metallomics was opened by Soren Husted, who discussed LA-ICP-MS bioimaging for plant samples.

The first afternoon session on Wednesday was opened by Angela Casini with a presentation on "supramolecular self-assembled metallacages for biomedical applications. In the parallel session, Xinrong Zhang reported how ICP-QQQ-MS could be used to study organic reactions.

The second afternoon sessions related to metals in medicine was opened by Frank Vanhaecke, who discussed how isotope ratio variations could be used for medical diagnosis. The parallel session on applications was opened by Qiuquan Wang with a report on metal tagging for PTMs analysis. Unfortunately, the parallel session was not even scheduled to be synchronized, so that changing over between the two streams was nearly impossible.

The first session of the last day was opened by Christian Hartinger with a report on the development of anticancer metallodrugs. Peter Faller opened the parallel session devoted to bioinorganic chemistry with a discussion of amyloidogenic peptides. The last morning session devoted to imaging was introduced by Joanna Collingwood with a report on the role of metals in neurodegenerative disorders.

The last afternoon sessions were opened by David Giedroc with a contribution discussing the mechanisms of zinc metallostasis in bacterial pathogens. While we here reported only from invited lectures, the lively discussion during the symposium was mainly driven by the many contributed presentations and discussions related to them. The symposium was closed by announcing the awardees for the poster awards and some farewell wishes by the symposium chairs. Unfortunately, the chair for the next symposium could not be announced since no bids were submitted. We therefore would like to motivate all interested parties to submit their offer to organize the next symposium to Gunda Koellensperger.

                                                                                                                Michael Sperling

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