8th Scientific Days on Autophagy (La Grande Motte; October 17-19th, 2018)

Autophagy is a cellular process allowing the elimination or the recycling of intracellular components. It is an ubiquitous and constitutive catabolic pathway highly conserved in eukaryotes.

This process has been identified after the lysosome discovery by Christian De Duve in the early 60’s (Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 for the discovery of the lysosome and the peroxisome) and characterized after the identification of the involved genes by Yoshinori Ohsumi (Nobel prize of Physiology or Medicine in 2016 for the discovery of mechanisms for autophagy). To date, two major pathways have been identified: the basal autophagy allowing the quality control and the renewing of the cytoplasm components and the stress-induced autophagy allowing the selective degradation of cytosolic and membrane-associated proteins (oncogenes for example), targeting cellular organelles or invading micro-organisms. During these last years, autophagy appeared as a fundamental phenomenon for the organism and for the cellular homeostasis and its deregulations are associated with numerous pathologies. Consequently, autophagy became a major challenge in fundamental research in biology, physiology and immunology and for the discovery of new therapeutic strategies. Among the pathologies concerned, neurodegenerative diseases, cancers, type II diabetes, obesity and infectious diseases can be cited.

It is thus necessary to bring together a scientific community around this thematic in order to reinforce the knowledge and the development of new therapeutic tools. Scientists coming from independent research organisms have thus decided to create the French Club for Autophagy (CFATG). Thanks to the CFATG, researches, done by the members of the association, will obtain a higher visibility and the developments made with the favoured synergy in the community, will allow reinforcement of the competitiveness at the international level. Each annual congress organized by the CFATG welcomes international renowned speakers in the field.

For more information: http://cfatg.org/