Mechanisms and Applications in Energy, Environment and Medicine

The Gordon Research Conference on Iron Sulfur Enzymes will be held in Stonehill College (Easton, MA) on June 15-20, 2014 with a broad and long-term goal of bringing together the world’s leading experts in iron sulfur enzymes, focusing on enzymatic mechanisms, model complexes, biogenesis, and roles in regulation and human disease in a uniquely cross-disciplinary manner. First organized in 1994 to focus on nitrogenase and its complex iron sulfur chemistry, knowledge about iron sulfur clusters has grown exponentially in the last two decades and, in 2006, the name of the conference was changed accordingly to Gordon Research Conference on Iron Sulfur Enzymes. Iron sulfur centers provide the focus for fundamental investigations of chemical bonding, spectroscopy, structure and molecular mechanism. Their functions range across electron transfer, acid-base catalysis, radical-based reactions, activation of small molecules (such as H₂, N₂, CO and CO₂), and sensing (where they are agents for cell regulation through transcription (DNA) or translation (RNA)) and, therefore, have numerous implications for health, medicine, environment and applications for technology (including renewable energy). The conference has tremendous breadth, featuring topics that range from fundamental iron sulfur chemistry, mechanistic investigation of iron sulfur enzymes and iron sulfur biogenesis to eukaryotic iron/sulfur metabolism and an emerging class of diseases related to abnormality of iron sulfur biogenesis. Chemists, biochemists, structural biologists, molecular biologists and medical researchers will be brought together in this meeting to catalyze further progress in the field.