The University of Oviedo will host, next 23 and 24 May the symposium Yeast: A Model Organism for Biomedical Research in which 21 specialists from different countries will explain their latest researchs with yeast on ageing, cancer, diabetes and other different neurodegenerative and mitochondrial deseases.

The international symposium will be opened on Wednesday, 23 May, at 9 am at the Assembly Hall of the Historic Building by the Vice-Rector for Research and Campus of International Excellence, Mª Paz Suárez Rendueles. Experts from the United States, Germany and France, apart from Spanish researchers, will come to the encounter.

This international symposium, which is coordinated by Fernándo Moreno Sanz, Professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo, will count on the participation of the researcher Sergio Moreno (University of Salamanca and CSIC), disciple of the Nobel Prize and Prince of Asturias Award Paul Nurse, whose studies on yeast were essential to understand in detail the mechanism of cell division, which meant a key step in the fight against cancer. Precisely, Sergio Moreno will give a lecture on cell differentiation and cancer.

Other scientists as Arturo Casadevall (University of Yeshiva in New york), expert in microbial virulence; Flaviano Giorgini (University of Leicester), who will present a work related to Huntington's desease; and Valter Longo (University of South California), who will present his study on dwarfism and longevity, will also participate in the encounter.

The experiments with yeast reveal the function of the gens related to human diseases because their cells have certain similitudes with ours. Likewise, tests with yeast are carried out more quickly and are cheaper than those made with mice, which are necessary for a later step.

The symposium, which is funded by the Ramón Areces Foundation, will be held at the Historic Building of the University, in morning or afternoon sessions, with a simultaneous projection in the Stepped Classroom. The entrance is free for those interested. As it is an international encounter with a scientific bias, the lectures will be given in English without translation.