Prof Gyorgy Hajnoczky from the University of Thomas Jefferson visited GIBH

On the morning of 30th October 2012, Prof Gyorgy Hajnoczky from the University of Thomas Jefferson visited GIBH and gave a talk on “Mitochondria in Health and Disease: Beyond Oxidative Phosphorylation”. Dr Liu xing guo from GIBH hosted the meeting.

Prof Hajnoczky introduced the history and latest progresses on the connecting structure between endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria in the cytoplasm. He also showed that this connecting structure is important in the exchange of materials across the outer membrane of mitochondria as well as in the regulation of mitochondrial function. During the talk, Prof Hajnoczky also described the latest research on MICU1 which is a key regulatory protein in the regulation of mitochondrial calcium absorption and release (Cell, 2012). After the talk, the participants had in-depth discussion with Prof Hajnoczky on cellular calcium signalling, mitochondrial dynamics and other technology related issues.

Prof Hajnoczky obtained both his MD and PhD from the University of Semmelweis, Budapest. He became a tenured professor of Thomas Jefferson University in 2004. He committed his research on cellular calcium signalling, mitochondrial dynamics, cell imaging etc. Prof Hajnoczky serves as reviewers for more than 20 international journals, including Nature, Cell and Science. He has published over 80 papers on top journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, Nature Cell Biology etc, and his papers has been cited more than 3000 times worldwide.