The History of DehaloCon

Flashback to DehaloCon I in Jena, Germany (March 23rd to 26th 2014).
The conference featured around 80 participants, presenting nearly 30 talks and 20 posters. 

7 topics were covered at DehaloCon I in Jena:

Besides the plenary talk of Stephen Zinder we present the following sessions and keynote speakers:

- Physiology and biochemistry of organohalide respiration: Which components participate in the respiratory chain of organohalide respiration and how do they work? Keynote speaker: Christof Holliger (École Polytechnique Lausanne, Switzerland)

- Enzymology and structure-function relationship of reductively dehalogenating enzymes: Reductive dehalogenases, corrinoid-containing iron-sulfur enzymes, are the key enzymes of organohalide respiration. What is the molecular basis of their catalysis? Other enzymes (i.e. benzoyl CoA reductases) perform reductive dehalogenation as well: What is the difference and are there similarities? Keynote speaker: Holger Dobbek (Humboldt University Berlin)

- Corrinoids: The complex cofactors of reductive dehalogenases. Corrinoids require a large maturation machinery and are of utter importance for the whole process of reductive dehalogenation. This is a session on maturation of corrinoids and the function and structure of them. Keynote speaker:  Jorge Escalante-Semerena (University of Georgia, Athens, USA)

 - Regulation and gene expression of reductive dehalogenation: How is organohalide respiration/reductive dehalogenation regulated and which conditions are responsible for up/downregulation of the key enzymes involved? Keynote speaker: David Leys (University of Manchester, UK)

- Genes and genomes: Genomes were and are still the basis for investigation of reductive dehalogenation. What can we learn from current sequences and functional and comparative approaches, as well as from other 'omics? Keynote speaker: Alfred Spormann (Stanford University, California, USA)

- Ecophysiology of reductive dehalogenation: Where in the environment is reductive dechlorination performed - and by which bacteria in which consortia? Keynote speaker: Paige Novak (University of Minnesota, USA)

- Applied aspects of reductive dehalogenation: Is bioremediation and/or bioaugmentation with reductively dechlorinating bacteria feasible and how it is performed best? Keynote speaker: Giulio Zanaroli (University of Bologna, Italy)

Flashback to DehaloCon II in Leipzig, Germany (March 26th to 29th 2017).

The conference featured around 90 participants, presenting 35 talks and 27 posters. 

5 SESSIONS were setted at DehaloCon II in Leipzig below:

- Organohalide-Respiratory Chains: They make up the heart of most anaerobic reductive dehalogenation processe. How are electrons transferred through the electron transfer chain, which components are part of the respiratory chains and how do they differ from and what are similarities to  e.g. nitrate respiratory chains? How are components of the respiratory chain regulated and which maturation processes are involved?

- Enzymology and Structure-Function Relationships of B12-containing Enzymes: During the last DehaloCon, two reductive dehalogenase structures were revealed, followed shortly after by one article in Nature and one in Science. This session will not only further insights into reductive dehalogenase function, structure and enzymology, but also compare them with other B12-containing enzymes. 

- Ecophysiology and Applied Aspects of Reductive Dehalogenation: Anaerobic reductive dehalogenation is a process playing important roles in ecosystems, also because of the degradation of harmful substances. In this session, science at the border of ecophysiology (which organisms mediate dehalogenation and how?) and the application of OHRB, e.g. bioremediation will be presented. Additionally methods to investigate anaerobic reductive dehalogenation in the natural environment will be presented.

- Non-respiratory Reductive Dehalogenation: During the last five years, two different reductive dehalogenation processes were revealed, which are not coupled to respiratory energy conservation: cytoplasmic reductive dehalogenases and Halobenzoate CoA reductases play a role in certain anaerobically dehalogenating Proteobacteria and all the surrounding aspects will be discussed in this session.

- Omics and Meta'omics of OHRB: The publication of several genomes of organohalide-respiring bacteria (OHRB) set the basis for many of the following, functional scientific studies and today genomes of all groups of OHRB are available. Here, omics which go one step further will be presented: Metagenomes/proteomes of reductively dehalogenating communities, comparative genomics, transcriptomics (especially RNA-seq), proteomics which lead to further understanding of organohalide respiration.

Invited speakers were:

Fraser Armstrong (University of Oxford, UK)
Catherine Drennan (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Jiandong Jiang (Nanjing Agricultural University, China)
Simona Rossetti (IRSA, Water Research Institute, Italy)
Holger Weiss (UFZ, Leipzig)
Martin Elsner (Helmholtz Zentrum München)
Sébastien Cecillon (Université de Lyon)

Additionally, the following members of the Research Unit FOR 1530 presented their topics:

Ute Lechner (University of Halle)
Lorenz Adrian (UFZ Leipzig)
Torsten Schubert (University of Jena)
Gary Sawers (University of Halle)
Ivonne Nijenhuis (UFZ Leipzig)

Flashback to DehaloCon III in Rome, Italy (September 27th to 30th 2021).

Because of COVID-19, DehaloCon III was an online Conference, and  featured around 100 participants.

Informations about the sessions and invited speakers will be updated later.