Biology,Chemistry and Therapeutic Applications of Nitric Oxide: First International Conference

The First International Conference on the Biology, Chemistry and Therapeutic Applications of Nitric Oxide represented a milestone in the history of nitric oxide (NO) research. This meeting combined the two major conferences on NO, the Biology of Nitric Oxide and the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Nitric Oxide. The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco under the auspices of the Nitric Oxide Society. This meeting successfully brought together scientists from all disciplines currently working in the field. There were three sessions on each day of the meeting, one session for each of the three areas (biology, chemistry and therapy). Each session consisted of two plenary lectures of 20 min duration followed by a series of short 10 min papers, with a total of 70 oral presentations. The meeting also included approximately 400 excellent poster presentations and a hot topics session. All the presentations and posters were of a very high standard and the conference chairs, J Parkinson and G Rubanyi and their co-chairs and scientific advisory board are to be congratulated on such an excellent programme. This review cannot begin to attempt to cover all the contributions, but only to convey the major themes and overall enthusiasm of the meeting. The interested reader is referred to the complete abstracts of the meeting which are published in Nitric Oxide, the journal of the Nitric Oxide Society [1].