President’s Message for 2020

Dear Members of the Society for Free Radical Research Europe,


2019 was an exciting and productive year for SFRR Europe with the highly successful and very memorable annual meeting held in Ferrara in June, with this hosted by a local organizing committee chaired by Prof. Giuseppe Valacchi. The meeting which attracted 293 participants from 37 different countries, was held in the centre of this beautiful city in a converted old opera theatre which provided wonderful surroundings and a great counterpoint for the cutting-edge science. The meeting featured the traditional society honorary lectures and awards as well as sessions specifically designed for young investigators, and also our young investigator awardees who were chosen at the International meeting in Lisbon and also at the Spetses summer school in 2018. In addition to these sessions, there were 7 symposia, which were selected out of 27 applications submitted by members of the society. In a new, and very pleasing feature, most of the symposia included one young presenter, allowing new and promising young researchers to show case their science.  Overall, the scientific programme featured 27 young presenters chosen from the selected abstracts, or the awardees from previous conferences, resulting in 60% of the talks (33 out of 56) being presented by young scientists. Furthermore, these were also well balanced with regard to gender of the presenter. These very positive statistics, bode well for the future wellbeing of our society. In another new development, 40 of the presented posters were also chosen for short 3 min presentations held during the lunch breaks in the Italian sunshine. Other highlights of the meeting included the opening reception in the old castle, the evening of opera in the theatre, a delightful al fresco conference dinner and the post-meeting 1-day Festschrift for Prof. Giuseppe (Pippo) Poli.  
Many thanks are due to everyone involved in organizing the meeting – a large cast – but special thanks are due to Giuseppe Valacchi, the local organizing team, the Scientific Program Committee, the International Scientific Advisory Board (which contained members from most of the constituent societies of SFRR-International), and especially all of the sponsors who made the meeting financially viable.
As we entering 2020, we look forward to a major meeting which has a significant involvement of our regional society – the biennial SFRR-International meeting which will be held in Taiwan over the period 17-20th March. This meeting will feature the Trevor Slater and Lester Packer Award lectures, 3 keynote lectures, 72 speakers in 18 symposia as well as many oral and poster presentations from the submitted abstracts. Last, but certainly not least, Taiwan has a lot to offer with regard to spectacular tourist and historical opportunities. Further details can be found at the meeting website: www.sfrri2020.
Later in the year, we very much look forward to our annual meeting which will be held in Belgrade, Serbia over the period 9-12th June under the guidance of Prof. Bato Korac. The preliminary program and arrangements for the meeting are already set (see website: www.sfrre2020belgrade.rs ) and this promises to be an exciting and very stimulating meeting with a great line up of speakers, symposia topics and hospitality. I encourage you all to mark your diaries with this event and I look forward to seeing you all there.
Also later in the year we will have our biennial Summer School for young researchers on the island of Spetses, Greece. This is a flagship event for the society and provides the opportunity for young scientists at the graduate and postgraduate level to interact with and present their science in a wonderful informal setting, as well as learning new skills which will hopefully broaden their skill base, both in terms of hard science, but also in communication, presentation skills, writing and paper and grant preparation. The summer school is again being co-sponsored by FEBS and other sponsors, so that a large number of bursaries and scholarships will be available to support young scientists to attend this event. For further details, please keep checking the SFRR-E website.   
I would like to thank all of the people who have contributed so much to the society over the last year, and who will hopefully continue to do so over the coming year. In particular, I would like to thank the Executive and Council of the society for all of their inputs and hard work, our web manager Rodrigo Ribes, and all of our sponsors, and particularly Elsevier (the publisher of Free Radical Biology & Medicine and Redox Biology), and the Oxygen Club of California (under the guidance of Enrique Cadenas and John Maguire), whose generous support has allowed the Society to considerably increase its activities. I would also like to thank all of our partner societies, both within the SFRR umbrella, and also the groups with whom we have dual membership arrangements – these have allowed us to increase and consolidate our membership, and (hopefully) made the society an attractive forum for a new generation of redox researchers.
Further in the future, the Council has already agreed that the 2021 meeting will be held June 2-5th in Liege (Belgium), hosted by Prof. Joël Pincemail, and that the 2022 meeting will be held in Vienna, hosted by Prof. Florian Gruber. Having previously visited these cities, I would thoroughly recommend putting these events in your diary as soon as possible.
Finally, I would like to thank each and every one of you for all your energy, enthusiasm, and wonderful efforts in this diverse, exciting and multi-disciplinary field of research. I look forward to a great year in 2020, and meeting and interacting with as many of you as possible.


Prof. Michael Davies,
President, SFRR Europe
Department of Biomedical Science,
Panum Institute,
University of Copenhagen,
Copenhagen,
Denmark