Dietary Polyphenols: Nrf2, epigenetics and in vivo efficacy
Pr Ah-Ng Tony Kong from the Center for Epigenomics of Natural Products, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University at Piscataway, USA will give a presentation about Dietary Polyphenols: Nrf2, epigenetics and in vivo efficacy during Vienna Polyphenols World Congress 2017.
According to Pr Kong: "Imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS)/reactive nitrogen species (RNS) and the anti-oxidative stress defense systems in cells creates excessive oxidative stress and inflammatory conditions that drive many diseases including cancer. ROS/RNS or carcinogen metabolites can attack intracellular lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and other macromolecules which can result in epigenetic modifications, genetic mutations, and carcinogenesis. Nrf2, a master regulator of antioxidant defense system plays a critical role in the regulation of many antioxidative stress/antioxidant and detoxification enzymes, such as glutathione S-transferases (GSTs), NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1), UDP-glucuronyl transferases (UGTs), and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), via the antioxidant response element (ARE). Numerous studies have shown that many dietary phenolic phytochemicals possess anti-cancer preventive property through the induction of Nrf2-mediated antioxidant/detoxification enzymes coupled with the anti-inflammatory signaling pathways that protect organisms against cellular damages caused by oxidative stress. [...] Discussions will include the failure of some polyphenols to activate the Nrf2 system, apparent lack of in vivo efficacy and failed clinical trials."
About Pr Kong: Ah-Ng Tony Kong is Distinguished Professor, Glaxo Endowed Chair Professor of Pharmaceutics and Director of the Graduate Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is the Director of a new Center for Epigenomics of Natural Products on Inflammatory Diseases. Dr. Kong received his B.S. in Pharmacy with First Class Standing from the University of Alberta, Canada and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics, Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his post-doctoral training in molecular genetics and cellular signaling at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He was on the faculty of Thomas Jefferson University Medical School and the University of Illinois at Chicago prior to joining Rutgers in early 2001. Dr. Kong serves on the NIH Study Section since 1999 and he has been continued receiving funding support from the NIH since 1993. He has trained more than 50 visiting professors, post-doctoral fellows, and Ph.D. students. He has published more than 230 original research, review articles and book-chapters. He has chaired and given presentations in many National and International Symposia. He teaches in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biopharmaceutics, Pharmacokinetics and Drug Metabolism to the PharmD and Ph.D./M.S. Students. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Current Pharmacology Reports (Springer), Associate Editor of Molecular Carcinogenesis, and member of editorial advisory boards of many journals including Cancer Prevention Research (AACR), Scientific Reports (Nature), and Biopharmaceutics and Drug Disposition. His research areas are in dietary & Traditional Chinese Medicine phytochemicals (signaling and gene expression, nutrigenomics, epigenomics, cancer prevention), animal cancer models, epigenetics, oxidative/redox/inflammatory stress response and Nrf2-mediated nuclear transactivation & signaling, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics and PK-PD modeling of phytochemicals.
