Dear Colleague,


It is our pleasure to invite you to participate in the eighth European Meeting on Mitochondrial Pathology to be held in Zaragoza, Spain from June 20th to 23rd, 2011. Since the first Euromit meeting in 1989, this symposium is organized every three-four years in Europe. Its aim is to bring forward recent advances in the field of mitochondrial research with a special focus on pathology. Euromit is now one of the largest international congresses dedicated to a specific field of molecular medicine.

Mitochondrial function is nowadays recognized as an important factor in human health and disease. Its alterations are the direct cause of rare genetic disorders (collectively known as Mitochondrial diseases) but are also playing a critical role in the pathogenesis of some of the major human health problems such as cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. It participates also as a determinant in the response to pharmacological treatment, survival after infection, normal ageing, fertility, etc. This implication is relaying not only on the role of mitochondria as the major energy supplier to the cell but also on its central role in intracellular signalling, apoptosis, differentiation, metabolic integrator, etc. In this respect, human mitochondrial diseases teach us how our basic knowledge on the system is far from being completed and how the description of the elements alone, even if exhaustive, does not provide us the functional understanding of the whole system. Therefore, there is still much to be discovered, both regarding the normal function of mitochondria, as well as the mechanisms by which they can cause disease in order to reach our ultimate goal: to develop better diagnosis and proper therapies for the diseases in which the mitochondria are involved.

By bringing together clinicians and basic scientists from all continents to this meeting, we intend to foster and facilitate constructive scientific interactions and collaborations. The meeting is composed of keynote lectures, plenary sessions on selected topics, short oral presentations, and poster sessions.

We sincerely hope that you will join us in making Euromit 8 a success. We look forward to welcoming you to Zaragoza for the eighth European Meeting on Mitochondrial Pathology.

Welcome!



Jose Antonio Enriquez

In the name of the organizing committee