Autophagy - From Molecular Mechanisms to Flux Control in Health and Disease

Ben Loos, Ph.D., is Professor in Physiological Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Over the last 15 years his work has sought to better understand the role of autophagy activity, i.e. autophagic flux, in cell death onset in neurodegenerative disease and gliomas, to better quantify and control autophagy function, so as to govern cell death decision making. He focuses on the utilization of various microscopy techniques, to allow single cell and tissue analysis with high localization precision and quantitative power across scale and modality.

Daniel Klionsky, PhD, is a Research Professor and Alexander G. Ruthven Professor in the Life Sciences and the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, USA. In 2003, he received the National Science Foundation Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, in 2009, was elected a Fellow of the AAAS, was named a Thompson Reuters Citation Laureate in 2013, was awarded the University of Utrecht van Deenen Medal in 2015 and became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. Dr. Klionsky's lab studies the mechanism and regulation of autophagy in yeast.