Full Symposia Schedules and Abstracts 

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Sunday October 29, 2023

7:30-8:30am Breakfast

Welcome address by the Organizers

8:30am Keynote: Matthias Mayer

Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) DKFZ-ZMBH alliance Heidelberg, Germany

“Regulation of the heat shock response by the Hsp70 network."

9:45-10:00am Break

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Session 1: CHAPERONE GENE TRANSCRIPTION

Chair: Lea Sistonen and Stuart Calderwood

10:00am Nahid Mivechi, (University of Georgia, USA) “Role of Heat Shock Factor 2 (HSF2) in Tumorigenesis”

10:15am Takanori Eguchi, (Okayama University, Japan) “Role of Zinc finger transcription factors in regulating molecular chaperone expression”

10:30am Adrienne Edkins, (Rhodes University, South Africa)

10:45am Aurélie de Thonel, (CNRS, Paris, France)

11:00am Q&A

11:15am Lea Sistonen, (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) ”Novel Targets of HSFs in Cell Stress and Differentiation Programs

11:30am Anniina Vihervaara, (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) "Priming and timing: The genetic basis for ordered synthesis of chaperone machineries"

11:45am Jenny Joutsen, (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) "Comprehensive analysis of human tissues reveals novel expression and localization patterns of HSF1 and HSF2"

12:00pm Q&A

12:15-1:30pm Lunch

 

Session 2: HSP INHIBITORS AND CANCER THERAPY

Chair: Len Neckers and Mehdi Mollapour

1:30pm Christine Heske, (National Cancer Institute, USA) "Hsp90 inhibitor drug conjugates: Increased tumor retention and decreased systemic toxicity of the active topoisomerase inhibitor SN-38"

1:45pm Kevin Foley, (Ranok Therapeutics Co. Ltd, USA) “CHAMPS (Chaperone-mediated Protein Degradation/Degrader)” 

2:00pm Jason Gestwicki, (UCSF, USA), “Leveraging New Insights into the Structure-Function of Heat Shock Protein 60 (Hsp60) to Design High Throughput Chemical Screens”

2:15pm Anushka Wickramaratne, (National Institutes of Health) "An intermediate Hsp90-J-protein complex in the pathway of protein remodeling"

2:30pm Q&A

2:45pm Ahmed Chadli, (Augusta University, USA) "EnnA inhibits the chaperone Hsp90 and unleashes the immune system against triple-negative breast cancer "

3:00pm  Fortunate Mokoena (North-West University, South Africa) "A pharmacophore model based virtual screening workflow for discovery of inhibitors targeting Plasmodium falciparum Hsp90" 

3:15pm Tawanda Zininga, (Stellenbosch University, South Africa) "Screening and characterization of peptide based inhibitors targeting the ER localised Plasmodium falciparum Hsp90"

3:30pm Q&A

3:45-4:00pm Break

4:00pm Ferruccio Ritossa Early Career Award, Alfred Tissières Young Investigator Award

6:00pm Dinner

 

Monday October 30, 2023

7:30-8:45am Breakfast

Session 3: ENVIRONMENT AND ORGANISMAL STRESS RESPONSES

Chairs: Elizabeth Repasky

8:45am Denis Larkin, (The Royal Veterinary College University of London, UK)

9:00am Sotirios (Akis) Fragkostefanakis, (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany) "Plant Heat Shock Factors at the Nexus of Chromatin Dynamics, Transcriptional Regulation, and RNA Splicing"

9:15am Elizabeth Repasky, (Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, USA)

9:30am Monika Fleshner, (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) "The Stress Response: Friend and Foe"

9:45am Pierre Goloubinoff, (Lausanne University) "Why would plant epimutants under global warming choose to block their heat-shock response?"

10:00am Jon Hibshman, (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) "A bacterial expression cloning screen reveals tardigrade mitochondrial single-stranded DNA-binding proteins as potent desicco-protectants"

10:15am Q&A

10:30-11:00am Break

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Session 4: CHAPERONES IN THE EXTRACELLULAR AND TRANSCELLULAR STRESS RESPONSE  

Chairs: Patricija van Oosten-Hawle & Wei Li

11:00am Wei Li, (University of Southern California, USA) “Secretory Autophagy Pathway, not Exosomes, Transports Hsp90 to Extracellular Environment during Tissue Injury and Tumor Growth”

11:15am Patricija van Oosten-Hawle, (UNC Charlotte, USA) “Safeguarding Proteostasis by Transcellular Chaperone Signaling”

11:30am Thiago Borges, (Harvard Medical School, USA) "How a Mycobacterial Hsp led to the discovery of a novel co-inhibitory receptor in transplantation”

11:45am Michael Lynes, (University of Connecticut, USA) "Metallothionein, an HSP wannabe and the implications of an anti-metallothionein monoclonal antibody therapy for inflammatory disease"

12:00pm Shawn Xiang Yang Wang, (VCU Health Center, USA) "Amplifying ‘abscopal’ effect of radiation therapy using a chaperone-based immune PRIME agent "

12:15pm Q&A

12:30pm-1:45pm Lunch

 

Session 5: CHAPERONE NETWORKS, CO-CHAPERONES IN THE STRESS RESPONSE AND AS TARGETS FOR THERAPY  

Chairs: Gabriela Chiosis and Laura Blair

1:45pm Gabriela Chiosis, (Memorial Sloan Kettering, USA) “Epichaperomes as a mechanism of stressor maladaptation in disease.”

2:00pm Yuka Okusha, (Okayama University, Japan) "Targeting chaperone networks with micro-RNA." 

2:15pm Jennifer Heritz, (State University of New York, USA) "Targeting Hsp90 co-chaperone in cancer"

2:30pm Q&A

2:45pm Dimitra Bourboulia, (State University of New York, USA) "Y-Phosphorylation of the eHsp90 chaperone machinery: A new paradigm of c-Src-mediated extracellular signaling"

3:00pm Greg Blatch, (Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE) "JDP-Hsp70 partnerships of the malaria parasite: Virtual screening for novel modulators of protein-protein interaction"

3:15pm Heath Ecroyd, (University of Wollongong, Australia)  "Studying the molecular chaperone action of heat shock proteins one molecule at a time"

3:30pm Q&A

6:00pm Banquet Dinner, Awards Celebration

 

Tuesday October 31, 2023

7:30-9:00am Breakfast

Session 6: PROTEIN QUALITY CONTROL, AUTOPHAGY, PROTEIN FOLDING DISORDERS, AGING.

Chairs: Rochelle Buffenstein and Andrew Truman

9:00am Albena Dinkova-Kostova, (University of Dundee, UK) "Nrf2 depletion in the context of Keap1 loss-of-function leads to mitolysosome accumulation"

9:15am Marc Mendillo, (Northwestern University, USA), "Delineating Mechanisms of Cellular Stress Resilience"

9:30am Rochelle Buffenstein, (Calico Life Sciences) "Molecular chaperones and aging"

9:45am Q&A

10:00am Veena Prahlad (Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Center, USA) "Neuronal control of cell stress response pathways"

10:15am Laura Blair, (University of South Florida, USA) "Taming Tau: How Molecular Chaperones Regulate Tau Aggregation"

10:30am Emily Sontag, (Marquette University) "ESCRTing Misfolded Proteins to the Vacuole"

10:45am Federica Scalia, (University of Palermo) "Genetic neurochaperonopathies: Assessing frequency and building databanks of genes and phenotypes"

11:00am Q&A

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Concluding Remarks by The Organizers