Iron Metabolism

Human iron metabolism is the set of chemical reactions maintaining human homeostasis of iron. The control of this necessary but potentially toxic substance is an important part of many aspects of human health and disease. Hematologists have been especially interested in the system of iron metabolism because iron is essential for red blood cells, where most of the human body's iron is contained. Understanding this system is also important for understanding diseases of iron overload, like hemochromatosis, and iron deficiency, like iron deficiency anemia.Iron is an absolute requirement for most forms of life, including humans and most bacterial species. Plants and animals all use iron; hence, iron can be found in a wide variety of food sources. Iron is essential to life due to its unusual flexibility to serve as both an electron donor and acceptor.Iron can also be potentially toxic. Its ability to donate and accept electrons means that if iron is free within the cell, it can catalyze the conversion of hydrogen peroxide into free radicals. Free radicals can cause damage to a wide variety of cellular structures, and ultimately kill the cell. To prevent that kind of damage, all life forms that use iron bind the iron atoms to proteins. This binding allows cells to benefit from iron while also limiting its ability to do harm. The most important group of iron-binding proteins contain the heme molecules, all of which contain iron at their centers. Humans and most bacteria use variants of to carry out redox reactions and electron transport processes. These reactions and processes are required for oxidative phosphorylation. That process is the principal source of energy for human cells; without it, most types of cells would die.The iron-sulfur proteins are another important group of iron-containing proteins. Some of these proteins are also essential parts of oxidative phosphorylation. Humans also use iron in the hemoglobin of red blood cells, in order to transport oxygen from the lungs to the tissues. Iron is also an essential component of myoglobin to store and diffuse oxygen in muscle cells.

Around 3 international conference will be held and many more symposiums and workshops in the future.
OMICS Group is a pioneer and leading scientific event organizer, which publishes around 400 open access journals and conducts over 300 Medical, Clinical, Engineering, Life Sciences, Pharmaceutical scientific conferences all over the globe annually with the support of morr than 1000 scientific associations and 30,000 editorial board members and 3.5 million followers to its credit. OMICS Group also organizes International conferences in these fields throughout the year with support of scientific committee and experts from academia and industries. Apart from scientific conferences, International workshops and symposiums, Exhibitions, and trade shows are part of the OMICS Group meetings.Now OMICS Group is going to organize International conference on Thrombosis and Hemostasis in Beijing, China on July 13-15, 2015.

Relevant conferences:
2015 Lorne Genome Conference February 15 - 17, 2015 Mantra Lorne, Victoria, Australia
6TH MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL BIOIRON SOCIETY, September 6-10, 2015, China
27th International Symposium on Cerebral Blood Flow, Metabolism and Function, June 27,June 30,2015
Societies and associations related to Iron Metabolism:
American society of Hematology
Iron and Alzheimer’s society
International BioIron society
Canadian Hemochromatosis society
Biochemical society
Companies:
Vifor pharma
Biostór Ireland
Macopharma
Alcimed
McGraw-Hill

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This page was last updated on April 19, 2024