Oliver Witard & Stuart Galloway
University of Stirling, UK

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.89.16

17-21 June 2012, Stockholm, Sweden

The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Stockholm, was a fantastic venue to host the 15th International Biochemistry of Exercise Congress (IBEC). Over 250 delegates from more than 20 countries were treated to a congress that revisited classic exercise biochemistry work, disseminated the latest cutting-edge biochemistry of exercise findings, and encouraged lively scientific debate and social interaction.

The congress opened with a poignant tribute to the late Eric Hultman. This session focused on his research in muscle metabolism and fatigue, particularly emphasising his contributions to work on glycogen metabolism, creatine and carnitine research. The tributes were delivered by esteemed colleagues who had worked closely with Eric, either as colleagues or post-docs. The conference also closed with an appearance and inspirational message from Per Olof Åstrand. During the conference experts in the field delivered presentations that addressed the capacity for exercise to regulate fatigue, adipose tissue metabolism, ageing, protein synthesis, skeletal muscle fat metabolism and gene expression. The computational biology debate concerning those fortunate individuals described as ‘responders’ and those less fortunate individuals described as ‘non-responders’ to exercise training provided one of many highlights that stimulated lively debate. To complement symposium presentations, a series of excellent oral presentations were presented by talented PhD candidates and post-docs such as Sophie Wardle (University of Stirling, Scotland), Sam Shepherd and Helen Bradley (University of Birmingham, UK), Ben Wall (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) and Vuokko Kavanen (Finland). A day prior to the conference, early-stage career researchers presented their work and received tips on personal development as a researcher. Adeel Safdar, from Harvard Medical School, USA, thoroughly deserved the Young Investigator Award and delivered an enthralling overview of his work on endurance exercise-mediated systemic mitochondrial rejuvenation in ageing.

Social highlights included Swedish Baseball, forest running and a delicious conference dinner at the old brewery (München-Bryggeriet) overlooking the Riddarfjärden.

IBEC 2012 lived up to its billing as the ‘premier exercise biochemistry congress’. We would like to thank The Physiological Society for awarding University of Stirling several travel grants to enable academic staff to attend and present their work at the meeting. The organising committee chaired by Carl Johan Sundberg and supported by Eva Jansson, Lars Larsson, Häkan Westerblad and Juleen Zierath of the Karolinska Institute, as well as colleagues from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences (Eva Blomstrand and Kent Sahlin) are to be congratulated for coordinating a truly memorable congress. We are sure that Sao Paulo will organise an equally special event for the next congress in 2015.