World's leading experts meet to talk oxygen

Mix scientific findings and world experts with chocolate and wine and what do you get? This year’s gathering of the Oxygen Club of California. The annual meeting is held in Santa Barbara from March 7 to 10 and brings together leading experts in oxidants and antioxidants in a single location to discuss the latest research benefiting biology and medicine. A common theme at this year’s meeting surrounds the use of plants, plant-based food, polyphenols and their health-promoting potential. Some of the presentations focus on the pluses of chocolate, wine and even pine bark. The French maritime version, to be exact.

Other topics presented over the four-day meeting include:

- The analysis of chocolate extracts by a candy company chemist

- Findings on how the human body absorbs chocolate

- Effects of wine on the human body

- The latest on Vitamin E and its effects on atherosclerosis

The Oxygen Club of California, which started meeting in the early 1980s, is a group of top researchers studying oxidation and antioxidants who are affiliated with the international Society for Free Radical Research. Public interest in antioxidants has grown dramatically over the past decade, as scientists try to understand how oxidants in the body contribute to disease as we age. Researchers are just beginning to uncover how antioxidants—substances from food, such as vitamin C, that guard cells from damage caused by oxidation—do their protective duty.

The annual meeting of the Oxygen Club of California is co-sponsored by the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy and the Linus Pauling Institute. It brings together experts from countries including New Zealand, Sweden, Germany and France and from institutions including the Karolinska Institute, Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Max Planck Institute and Japan’s Institute for Virus Research.

The annual event is held at the Fess Parker Doubletree Resort in Santa Barbara located at 633 East Cabrillo Boulevard. All sessions are open to the media.

For a complete list of sessions, abstracts and more information, call Jon Weiner at the USC Health Sciences Public Relations office at 323-442-2830.