It is a great pleasure for me to invite you to the webcast of the Society for Medicines Research (SMR) symposium "The Role of Mitochondria in Apoptosis" which was held on Thursday, July 13, 2000.

It is becoming increasingly clear that mitochondria play a central role in the processes that lead to cell death. This meeting brings together speakers from both Europe and the United States (representing both academia and industry) to address the role of mitochondria in apoptotic cell death.

A number of critical mechanisms have recently been elucidated by which mitochondria are involved in cell death. Elevated cytosolic Ca2+ and oxidative stress both contribute to the opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP), which depolarises the mitochondria and leads to mitochondrial swelling and subsequent release of cytochrome c from the intermembrane space. Cytochrome c normally functions as part of the respiratory chain, but when released into the cytosol (as a result of PTP opening) it becomes a critical component of the apoptosis execution machinery, where it activates caspases (cysteine aspartate proteases) and (if ATP is available) causes apoptotic cell death. Thus, a number of new targets for therapeutic intervention have emerged. This will be related to the prospects for the development of new drugs to treat both acute and chronic neurodegenerative disorders.

The Society provides high quality forums for discussion of drug research among all disciplines, and this is the second in a series of planned webcasts to make our symposia available (free!) to the scientific community worldwide.

• September 2000: Conquering Antibacterial Resistance
• December 2000: Trends in Medicinal Chemistry
• March 2001: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary
• June 2001: Disease and Drug Delivery

Visit our previous Webcast "Case Histories of Drug Discovery".

We would like to thank Prous Science for providing the technological expertise for the Webcast and to our distinguished speakers. We hope you enjoy this informative program.