Nobel Laureate to address ISSFAL 2014 Stockholm Congress

ISSFAL is delighted to announce that the opening plenary lecture at its prestigious biennial Congress will be given by 1982 Nobel Laureate Professor Bengt Samuelsson.

Professor Samuelsson of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with colleagues Sune K. Bergström and John R. Vane "for their discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related biologically active substances" (1).

Their identification of novel biological mediators, eicosanoids (prostaglandins, leukotrienes,  thromboxanes) and the subsequent discovery of other lipid mediators (e.g. docosanoids) was key to understanding biological requirement for dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids.  This work formed the underlying mechanistic basis of much of the research and clinical applications we undertake today.

The 2014 ISSFAL Congress will provide a unique opportunity to hear one of the true founders of our field give his fascinating, firsthand insights into developments that have driven much of global nutrition and pharmacology research and practice in recent decades.  Professor Samuelsson’s Plenary sets the tone for the many presentations on current, groundbreaking research and comprehensive summaries of fatty acid and lipid research for which the ISSFAL Congresses are known.

For further background :

Prof. Samuelsson's Nobel Lecture can be viewed on http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1982/samuelsson-lecture.html

In a 2012 interview, Nobel Laureate Samuelsson describes when he first realized that the source of prostaglandins had to be polyunsaturated fatty acids (http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1912). 

(1)   "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1982". Nobelprize.org. 1 Apr 2013 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1982/