Physiologie et pathologie / Physiology and Pathology

Séminaire FSER organisé par Gerard Karsenty (Columbia University Medical Center) du 23 au 27 mars 2015

Participants

Anne Brunet, Ronald M. Evans, Adolfo Ferrando, Tamas Horvath, Ronald C. Kahn, Gerard Karsenty, Stavroula Kousteni, François Leulier, Adriana Maggi, David J. Mangelsdorf, Ruslan Medzhitov, Gilles Mithieux, Eric N. Olson, Jorge Ruas, Ulrich Schibler, Joseph Schlessinger, Erwin F. Wagner, Vijay K. Yadav
Emilie Marcus, Editor-in-Chief, Cell

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Résumé

The meeting entitled “Physiology and Pathology” that was held at La Fondation des Treilles, March 23rd to March 27th, 2015 had eighteen participants plus Dr. Emily Marcus (chief editor of the journal Cell who did not give a presentation).

Among the eighteen contributors to the meeting, four of them could be considered junior to mid-level scientists. Overall the eighteen biologists that attended the Seminar represented a scope of disciplines ranging from immunology to hematology, endocrinology, heart functions, bone functions, signaling through tyrosine kinases, structural biology, muscle function, liver function, brain function, regulation of gene expression by transcription factors, or by the microbiome. The model organisms presented during this meeting were killing fish, mouse and human and even drosophila for one participant.

The purpose of the seminar was to bring researchers of many different horizons to illustrate the resurgence of physiology as a discipline.

The originality of this meeting, was its absence of a narrow focus on a particular organ, physiological, cellular or molecular process. All participants commented that the broad spectrum of topics covered during these three days of intense exchanges was more stimulating than usual meetings. Each of them mentioned specifically that it showed them new ways of thinking about physiology in general and revealed to them novel ways of addressing the biological problem their laboratories focus on.

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Compte-rendu

The meeting entitled “Physiology and Pathology” that was held at La Fondation des Treilles, March 23rd to March 27th, 2015 had nineteen participants. One of them, Dr. Emily Marcus is the chief editor of the journal Cell and did not give a presentation. The other eighteen participants did give a forty five minutes long presentation, followed for all of them by lively fifteen to twenty minutes long discussions. The purpose of the seminar was to bring researchers of many different horizons to illustrate the resurgence of physiology as a discipline.

A second purpose of this meeting, its originality compared to other scientific meetings, and the reason why it was overall received so positively by its participants, was its absence of a narrow focus on a particular organ, physiological, cellular or molecular process. All participants commented that the broad spectrum of topics covered during these three days of intense exchanges was more stimulating than usual meetings they attend that have as a focus their particular area of research. Each of them mentioned specifically that it showed them new ways of thinking about physiology in general and revealed to them novel ways of addressing the biological problem their laboratories focus on. This was also the case for me and this was the main objective of the meeting when I thought of organizing it.

Among the eighteen contributors to the meeting, four of them could be considered junior to mid-level scientists. Those were Drs. A. Brunet (Associate Professor, Stanford University Medical School, USA), A. Ferrando and S. Kousteni (Associate Professors, Columbia University Medical Center, USA) and V. Yadav (Junior Group Leader, The Sanger Institute, U.K.). Overall the eighteen biologists that attended the Seminar represented a scope of disciplines ranging from immunology (Dr. R. Medzhitov) to hematology (Dr. A. Ferrando), endocrinology (Drs. A. Maggi, R. Evans, G. Karsenty, D. Mangelsdorf and J. Ruas), heart functions (Dr. E. Olson), bone functions (Drs. G. Karsenty, S. Kousteni), signaling through tyrosine kinases (Drs. C.R. Kahn, G. Mithieux) structural biology (Dr. J. Schlessinger), muscle function (Dr. J. Ruas), liver function (Dr. V. Yadav), brain function (Dr. T. Horvath), regulation of gene expression by transcription factors (Drs. E. Wagner, R. Evans), or by the microbiome (Dr. F. Leulier). The model organisms presented during this meeting were killing fish, mouse and human and even drosophila for one participant (Dr. F. Leulier).

One participant (Dr. R. Medhitov) presented a profoundly innovative conceptualization of what is inter-organ communication, how it is regulated and chow it could become dysregulated. All other participants presented experimental results or observations that were either unpublished (Drs. A. Brunet, G. Karsenty, F. Leulier, V. Yadav) or had been published less than a year ago. Again, the novelty of the data presented, along with their overlapping nature from one contributor to another, explain why this seminar was so successful in generating extremely lively discussion and possible collaborations. This was certainly the case for Dr. G. Karsenty and Drs. A. Brunet and C.R Kahn. I also know that Dr. C.R. Kahn and Dr. J. Schlessinger have initiated during the meeting discussion about a possible collaboration.

Overall the consensus opinion among the participants was that this meeting showed to what unexpected extent physiology, whether it is studied at the level of a molecule, a cell, an organ or an entire organism, has been rejuvenated through the use of genetic means in various vertebrate model organisms. The impression left to all its participants by this intense, three days long meeting is that physiology is now at the forefront of biology and, through the modern tool of genetics, can be studied at the level of the entire organism. The importance of this growing body of knowledge is not only biological but also medical as it may affect how we treat frequent degenerative diseases. This point was beautifully illustrated during the presentation of Dr. J. Schlessinger. In that regard and retrospectively, considering the great enthusiasm the meeting generated, this seminar would probably have benefited from the presence of a clinician or a human biologist.

Going forward this meeting should be viewed has defining the status of whole-organism physiology in vertebrates in 2015. The wealth of results presented, their medical implications, all call for a record meeting on the same theme in a three to five year time frame.