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46958-SE
8th International Conference on Hydrogenases and Hydrogen Production, August 2007, Breckenridge, CO

Marcetta Darensbourg, Texas A&M University

8^th International Conference on Hydrogenases and Hydrogen Production was held in Breckenridge

Co-organizers:

Maria L. Ghirardi

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

1617 Cole Blvd., Golden CO 80401

 Marcetta Y. Darensbourg
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
College Station TX  77843
http://www.chem.tamu.edu/hydrogenase/

The 8^th International Conference on Hydrogenases and Hydrogen Production was held in in Breckenridge, CO, August 5-10, 2007.  Much of the results of this meeting can be gleaned from the website given above which provides a historical perspective of these conferences based on their names.. Early conferences focused on traditional physiology and ecology of H₂-producing organisms, followed by biochemical characterizations of the hydrogenases, and finally evolving into molecular biology over time.  The advent of the protein crystal structures has added the dimension of computational and synthetic modeling which has played a major role in the conferences since 1997.   As interest in the use of hydrogen gas as an energy carrier has gained momentum worldwide in recent years due to increasing costs of fossil fuels and concerns about climate change and other environmental effects associated with global warming, the 2007 program reflects a broadened range of topics in both biology and chemistry (particularly electrochemistry).  The 2010 meeting, the 9^th International Conference on Hydrogenases, will be held in Uppsala, Sweden, and hosted by the Department of Photochemistry and Molecular Science of Uppsala University.

There were over 180 official registrants in this truly international meeting.   Nine lecture sessions, with 47 oral presentations altogether, were organized along the lines of biological studies of hydrogenase enzymes, their modifications for desirable properties in applications, electrochemical studies of enzymes and of model complexes; spectroscopic studies; and applications in hydrogen production and fuel cells.  Two poster sessions were needed for the 96 poster presentations. 

A list of sponsors is provided at the end of this report.  The support of the ACS-PRF ($3500) was divided into portions and exclusively used to allay part of the travel costs of the following international participants who were all plenary speakers:

Fraser Armstrong, Professor, University of Oxford, England

 Barbel Friedrich, Professor, Institute for Plant Physiology, Cell Biology and Microbiology of the Free Unniversity of Berlin, Germany.

Rolf Thauer, Director, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, and Head of the Department of Biochemistry, Marburg, Germany

Kornel Kovacs, Professor, Biological Research Centre and Department of Biotechnology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

LiCheng Sun, Professor, Center of Molecular Devices, Department of Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Royal Institute of Technology(KTH), Stockholm, Sweden.

 Note: Mei Wang, Dalian University-China, was originally listed in the grant application as a speaker to be supported by the ACS-PRF funds.  Unfortunately, Dr. Wang was unable to attend the conference due to a problem having her visa issued.  Therefore, her collaborator LiCheng Sun presented their work at the conference and was subsequently supported by the ACS-PRF funds originally intended for Mei Wang.

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