title: Autophagy: from structure to metabolism to therapeutic regulation.
abstract: Multidisciplinary approaches are increasingly being used to elucidate the role of autophagy in health and disease and to harness it for therapeutic purposes. The broad range of topics included in the program of the Vancouver Autophagy Symposium (VAS) 2013 illustrated this multidisciplinarity: structural biology of Atg proteins, mechanisms of selective autophagy, in silico drug design targeting ATG proteins, strategies for drug screening, autophagy-metabolism interplay, and therapeutic approaches to modulate autophagy. VAS 2013 took place at the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, and was hosted by the CIHR Team in Investigating Autophagy Proteins as Molecular Targets for Cancer Treatment. The program was designed as a day of research exchanges, featuring two invited keynote speakers, internationally recognized for their groundbreaking contributions in autophagy, Dr Ana Maria Cuervo (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY) and Dr Jayanta Debnath (University of California, San Francisco). By bringing together international and local experts in cell biology, drug discovery, and clinical translation, the symposium facilitated rich interdisciplinary discussions focused on multiple forms of autophagy and their regulation and modulation in the context of cancer.
authors.affiliation: Genome Sciences Centre; BC Cancer Agency; Vancouver, BC CA; Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry; Simon Fraser University; Burnaby, BC CA.
authors.forename: Mario A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Jardon
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rothe
authors.forename: Svetlana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bortnik
authors.forename: Lubomir
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Vezenkov
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Robert N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Julian J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lum
authors.forename: Sharon M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Gorski
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D001343:Autophagy / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D008660:Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D018832:Molecular Chaperones / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000628:therapy*; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D018832:Molecular Chaperones
keywords: cancer; chaperone-mediated autophagy; drug resistance; glycolysis; macroautophagy; metabolism