iFIT Seminar Series 2025 with Prof. Dr. Marcus Conrad
Modulating Ferroptosis for Disease Prevention
On behalf of the iFIT spokespersons Lars Zender, Juliane Walz and Bernd Pichler, it is our pleasure to inform you about and invite you to the next episode of our iFIT Seminar Series 2025 that will take place
on Monday, July 14th at 1:15 pm (CEST)
at Big Lecture Hall in the ENT Clinic (HNO Klinik, Elfriede-Aulhorn-Straße 5 , 72076 Tübingen).
Our guest speaker, Prof. Dr. Marcus Conrad (Helmholtz Munich, Germany) will give a talk on
“Modulating Ferroptosis for Disease Prevention”.
Ferroptosis is a metabolic form of regulated cell death characterized by iron-dependent oxidative destruction of cellular membranes. Ferroptosis emerges as the underlying cause of several degenerative diseases and represents a pharmacologically tractable vulnerability for eradicating difficult-to-treat cancers, including therapy-resistant and metastatic cancer cells. Years before the term “ferroptosis” was coined, we had shown that glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) acts as the guardian of ferroptosis due to its ability to directly scavenge phospholipid hydroperoxides. We further identified ferroptosis suppressor protein-1 (FSP1) as a second critical surveillance system for ferroptosis. Remarkably, FSP1 also serves as the long-sought-after, warfarin-resistant vitamin K reductase in the canonical vitamin K cycle and maintains a non-canonical vitamin K cycle efficiently protecting against ferroptosis. We further reported the first in vivo active FSP1 inhibitor, called icFSP1, which induces phase separation of FSP1 prior to cancer cell death induction. Ongoing studies are thus geared towards understanding the in vivo relevance of these systems in ferroptosis control and their pharmacological tractability as the basis for developing new pharmacotherapies for ferroptosis-related diseases including cancer.
As a special feature of this program, iFIT will sponsor free lunch packages! (First come, first serve)
All members of the University Hospital and University of Tübingen are invited to participate!
We look forward to this Seminar Series session and to see you there!
