Welcome

It is our pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Collaborative Research Center 877 "Proteolysis as a Regulatory Event in Pathophysiology" to our third International Symposium "Protease World in Health and Disease".

More than one hundred established scientists and junior researchers meet here in Kiel to discuss many aspects of the fascinating world of cellular proteases, protease inhibitors and regulators of proteolytic events. Talks by internationally renowed invited speakers will be complemented by shorter talks selected from the abstracts and by poster sessions. We are convinced that the attractive venue of Kiel will ensure exciting exchange of ideas and unpublished data and will enable new scientific collaborations.

All speakers or participants of this meeting will realize that only fundamental research focusing on the molecular events leading to and following proteolysis will provide new ideas for the future and will in the end lead to causal treatment of human diseases.

We are grateful that the leading experts in the field have agreed to follow our invitation. Thanks to all of you for coming and for making this meeting a success. Let us work all together to have a great, collaborative meeting.

The general aim of the CRC877 has been to obtain a profound understanding of proteolytic processes in cellular regulation and signaling and to characterize the roles of proteolytic pathways in human pathophysiology.

The process of proteolysis is irreversible, in contrast to other posttranslational modifications such as protein phosphorylation, protein lipidation or protein methylation. Therefore, proteolysis represents an entirely different and presumably higher level of regulation than the other mentioned protein modifications. Furthermore, signaling via proteases is usually fast and thus is used by the organism for stress or danger responses during inflammatory states.

The goal of our CRC has been to learn about the molecular mechanisms regulating extracellular, intramembrane and intracellular proteolytic steps in signaling cascades and to understand the conceptual differences between proteolytic steps and other fast and reversible signaling events.

The understanding of molecular mechanisms of protease activation or deactivation as well as the communication between proteases will not only help us to define pathophysiologic situations mediated by cytokines, growth factors, binding of neighboring cells and other regulatory networks but also contribute to define points of intervention for the development of novel therapeutic principles. First such therapies are being tested in patients with autoimmune diseases.

We wish you all exciting and joyful days in Kiel.