Past Vanadium Symposia

History of vanadium symposia

By Dieter Rehder

“The development of the understanding and recognition of the remarkable properties of vanadium compounds has stimulated the exploration of the chemistry and biochemistry of vanadium, its (potential) medicinal applications, and its deployment in new materials. Being at the same time consequence and drive for a steady progress in several areas, research into and applications of vanadium complexes range from therapeutics to catalysis, and from new materials to "green chemistry". The past decades have witnessed an outburst of research into this field, as the several published books [1-6] and many reviews undoubtedly state.

The interest in meetings centered on vanadium science can be traced back to 1986, when the very first specific meeting dedicated to vanadium chemistry, entitled "Role of Vanadium in Biology", was held within the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Meeting. A synopsis from this symposium became included in the Federation proceedings [7].

In the second event of this kind, chemical aspects were emphasized. The meeting, entitled "Biochemistry of Vanadium", was held in 1993 on occasion of the 45th ACS Southeast Regional Meeting (Johnson City, Tennessee, USA).

The third vanadium centered meeting followed in 1994 in Montreal (Canada), and embraced the important pharmacological scope. Contributions to this meeting, entitled "Vanadium: Biochemistry, Physiology, and Potential Use in Diabetes Therapy", were published in a special volume of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry [8].

Three years later vanadium chemistry was given for the first time the prominence of a satellite session, at the 8th International Conference for Bioinorganic Chemistry - ICBIC 8 (Yokohama, Japan, 1997). That meeting was followed by another one in the same year entitled "Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Therapeutic Applications of Vanadium Compounds", held at the 5th North American Chemical Congress (in Cancun, Mexico, November 10-14, 1997). This symposium, with Alan S. Tracey and Debbie C. Crans as chairs, is considered to be the 1st International Vanadium Symposium - V1 Symposium. A volume within the ACS Symposium Series was published with contributions from this meeting [9]. The V1 Symposium initiated the tradition on these vanadium-focused theme meetings to be held every two years.

The 2nd Symposium, on Biological Aspects of Vanadium, was held in Berlin, Germany, August 16-17, 1999, with Dieter Rehder and Valeria Conte as chairs. A special issue of the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry (80(1-2), 2000) was published with contributions from this meeting. The V3 Symposium, 3rd International Symposium on the Chemistry and Biological Chemistry of Vanadium (which remained the official title of the symposium for the V3-V7 symposia) was held in Osaka, Japan, November 26-29, 2001, with Toshikazu Hirao as chair. A special volume of Coordination Chemistry Reviews (237(1-2), 2003) was published with contributions from this meeting. The V4 Symposium was held in Szeged, Hungary, September 3-5, 2004, with Tamás Kiss as chair. The journal Pure and Applied Chemistry (77(9), 2005) published an issue entirely dedicated to this meeting. St. Francisco (California, USA) directed the V5 Symposium, held within the 232nd ACS Fall Meeting in September 10-14, 2006, with Debbie Crans as chair, and João Costa Pessoa and Ken Kustin as co-chairs. The meeting is documented in a special volume: ‘Vanadium: the Versatile Metal’ (vol. 974, 2007) of the ACS Symposium Series. The V6 Symposium, chaired by João Costa Pessoa, took place in Lisbon, Portugal, July 17-19, 2008. The journals Pure Appl. Chem. (81(7), 2009) and J. Inorg. Biochem. (103(4), 2009) published issues entirely dedicated to this meeting. Toyama, Japan, has been the venue for the V7 Symposium (chairs: Hitoshi Michibata, Kan Kanamori; co-chair: Toshikazu Hirao), October 6-9, 2010. Selected contributions to this meeting are compiled in vol. 255 (issues 19-20, 2011) of Coordination Chemistry Reviews.

At the V8 Symposium the title of the symposium became adapted to developments directed towards the role of vanadium in material sciences and toxicology. The 8th International Vanadium Symposium on the Chemistry, Biological Chemistry, and Toxicology, chaired by Mitch Cohen, Andrew Ghio and Craig C. McLauchlan, was held in Arlington (Virginia, USA), August 15-18, 2012. Selected contributions are published in special issues of Dalton Transactions (42, 2013) and Journal of Immunotoxicology (11, 2014).”

The 9th International Vanadium Symposium, chaired by Giulia Licini and Valeria Conte, was held in Padua, Italy, from June 29th to July the 2nd, 2014.  Selected contributions were published in a special issue of Coordination Chemistry Reviews (301-302, 2015). This was followed by the 10th Symposium, chaired by Biing-Jiun Uang, and held in Taipei, Taiwan, from 6th - 9th November. A virtual issue of Chemistry - an Asian Journal compiled selected manuscripts from the meeting. V11 was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, chaired by Dinorah Gambino, and was the last presential meeting, before the 2020 pandemic. It was held from the 5th – 8th November 2018, and a special issue was published in the New Journal of Chemistry (43, 2019) with communications from the symposium. V12 was the previous meeting, which was held online and chaired by Anastasios Keramidas, from Limassol, Cyprus, in 2021 and a special issue of the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry (237, 2022) covered the biological contributions.