Plenary Lecture
Peter Agre, 60 views

Found throughout nature, aquaporin water channels confer high water permeability to cell membranes. Discovered in human erythrocytes, AQP1 has been characterized biophysically, and the atomic structure of AQP1 is known. Twelve homologous proteins exist in humans. Some transport only water (aquaporins); others transport water plus glycerol (aquaglyceroporins). These proteins are required for generation of physiological fluids (urine, cerebrospinal fluid, aqueous humor, sweat, saliva, and tears). Involvement of aquaporins in multiple clinical states is becoming recognized—renal concentration, fluid retention, cataract, skin hydration, brain edema, thermal stress, glucose homeostasis, malaria, and even arsenic poisoning. Aquaporins are particularly important in plant biology. This information now provides the challenge of developing new technologies to manipulate aquaporins for clinical or agricultural benefits.

Born in 1949 in Minnesota, Peter Agre received his M.D. in 1974 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then served as the Vice Chancellor for science and technology at Duke University. Agre leads the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute (JHMRI). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. He is also a founding member of Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA), and serves on its Board of Advisors. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (which he shared with Roderick MacKinnon) for his discovery of aquaporins, water-channel proteins that move water molecules through the cell membrane. In 2009, Peter Agre held the post of 163rd president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Plenary Talk
Anton Zeilinger, 106 views

Research on the foundations of quantum mechanics has given rise to the field of quantum information science. It should be stressed that this research beginning around the 1970s was not motivated by the search for applications but rather by pure fundamental curiosity. Today, quantum computation, quantum teleportation, quantum communication, or quantum cryptography are novel concepts in information technology with no classical parallel. The resulting experimental development in quantum information science has led to unprecedented control of quantum systems which again opens up the door for novel fundamental experimental research directions. For example, the high-precision control of entangled photon states even over very large distances allows novel tests of the concepts of non-locality and realism or the development of quantum microoptics opens up new experiments in higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces. It is to be expected that such experiments in turn will again give rise to new possibilities in quantum information science.

Anton Zeilinger (born May 20, 1945 in Ried im Inkers, Austria) is currently professor of physics at the University of Vienna. He is also the director of the Vienna branch of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Zeilinger has performed many experiments including quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography, and quantum computation. He has also performed a number of experiments in atom interferometry and in quantum interference of large molecules, like C60 and C70. He has held positions at the University of Innsbruck, the Technical University of Munich, the Technical University of Vienna and at the MIT. Zeilinger has received many awards for his scientific work, among which an honorary professorship at the University of Science and

Pleanry Lecture
Ada Yonath, 14 views

Detailed three-dimensional structures are essential for the understanding of the mechanisms of the life process. One of the most vital life processes is the production of proteins, the cellular "workers". The information for protein composition in encoded in DNA genes, and the ribosomes are the universal cellular "factories" that translate the genetic code into proteins.

Owing to the multiple functional conformations of the ribosomes, their structural complexity, their large size and their marked tendency to deteriorate, the determination of their structure was considered to be formidable. Hints obtained from the hibernating polar bears, opened the way for these studies. Constant methodological innovations and technical developments enabled the determination of the high resolution structure of the ribosomes and shed light on the critical mechanisms of antibiotics activity, thus providing imperative tools for structural based drug design and improvement.

Ada E. Yonath (born 1939) is the current director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2009, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Seitz for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome, becoming the first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize. Yonath’s work focuses on the mechanisms underlying protein biosynthesis, by ribosomal crystallography, a research line she pioneered over twenty years ago. Additionally, she studied the modes of action of over twenty different antibiotics targeting the ribosome, the mechanisms of drug resistance and synergism, and the structural basis for antibiotic selectivity, paving the way for structure-based drug design.