Activities

State-of-the-Art talk by Dr. Kaartinen on July 14 - French independence day on Factor XIII-A and neutrophils.

Pier won a 'Best New Entry' award with his project on TGs, ECM and bone mechanotransduction. He presented a poster and gave an oral presentation. Dr. Kaartinen gave an invited talk on TGs and bone. 

Sahar won an Oral Presentation award for her work on the skeletal phenotype of Tgm1-/-CTSK mouse. 

Fatemeh gave a great short talk on Factor XIII-A in NETosis.

Transglutaminases are a family of structurally and functionally related enzymes that are widely distributed in all living organisms. The predominant and classical function of these enzymes is calcium-dependent protein crosslinking which mostly occurs in the extracellular space. However, novel, non-crosslinking roles ranging from intracellular cell signaling to cell adhesion and transcription have emerged and added a level of challenge to understand of their function in human biology. Recent advances in medicinal chemistry have introduced excellent methods and tools to the field that aid the quest of deciphering the biological roles of transglutaminases in health and disease.

Dysregulation of transglutaminases in multiple human diseases is known and we are beginning to understand how this contributes to the pathogenesis of certain diseases. This 5th Gordon Research Conference on "Transglutaminases in Human Disease Processes" delved into many disease areas, to establish where transglutaminases are central to the disease process. The conference addressed ways to restore normal enzyme function and explore the tools available and needed to help us monitor or modulate enzyme levels, expression or activity.

Chair: Mari T. Kaartinen
Vice-Chair: Jeffrey W. Keillor

GRS:
Chair: Magdalena Adamczyk

Vice-Chair: Huifang Sun