Meeting reports Free

The Biochemical Society meeting, ‘Low molecular weight thiols: lessons learned and new perspectives’, was originally scheduled to take place in October 2020 in London, but the Covid-19 pandemic meant it was instead held online from 7–9 December 2020.

This was the first focused scientific meeting on low molecular weight (LMW) thiols, which brought together researchers across the world, studying different members of a structurally and functionally diverse family of LMW thiols. Key goals were to share and advance knowledge and to create an environment for innovative thinking and establishing collaborative interactions.

The meeting was dedicated to the memory of Professor Arne Holmgren, a well-known redox pioneer. The meeting therefore started with a tribute to his career and legacy, which was given by Professor Barry Halliwell. A former fellow in Professor Holmgren’s laboratory, Dr Lucia Cappo, presented the first lecture on the discovery and regulation of glutaredoxins. This was followed by Professor Judy Hirst’s Keilin Memorial Lecture on the structure–function analysis of mammalian complex I in health and disease, an exciting topic highly relevant to redox biology.

There were three main sessions, covering the following topics: (a) glutathione and bacillithiol; (b) coenzyme A and ageing; and (c) ergothioneine. Many exciting findings and highlights were presented by invited speakers, ranging from novel modes of redox-induced protein modifications and their identification by MS-based methodologies to dysregulation of LMW thiols function in ageing and pathologies. This is the first meeting that has emphasized the rapid build-up of exciting new research on coenzyme A, bacillithiol and ergothioneine. Each session had three short oral talks selected from submitted abstracts, which gave an excellent opportunity for junior researchers to present and discuss their findings. In addition, two keynote lectures were given by Professor John Helmann on the ‘Diverse roles of bacillithiol’ and Professor Barry Halliwell on ‘Adventures with ergothioneine’.

Online portals for digital posters and networking provided an excellent opportunity to discuss on-going research and reveal the prospect for collaborative interactions. The meeting also highlighted successful examples of collaboration among scientists from very different disciplines.