Postdoc Andres Florez Amaya (Garner Lab) and his colleague Hamed Alborzinia of the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine, recently edited and published a book titled Ferroptosis: Mechanism and Diseases.
The book features chapters authored by several prominent researchers who study ferroptosis, a cell death pathway mediated by build-up of iron molecules and reactive oxygen species. This form of cell death has generated a lot of attention as a possible drug target and as an alternative to apoptosis.
The idea for the book was hatched when Alborzinia presented their work in 2018 at a conference called Cancer and Metabolism in Cambridge, UK. A representative of Springer Nature approached them and asked them to participate in a book project.
“It is atypical for junior scientists to write books so I feel lucky that I was offered this possibility and I hope the readers will find our book exciting and approachable,” Florez says. “We did put strong emphasis in making the concepts as clear as possible since this is a new field and we wanted to ease the introduction and get other scientists excited to answer questions in this new form of cell death.”
Florez and Alborzinia wanted to assemble a book that would highlight emerging topics and potential applications for ferroptosis research, while remaining fairly accessible. The book begins with a foreword from one of scientists who first identified ferroptosis and an introductory chapter explaining the pathway. The subsequent chapters explore ferroptosis’s role in diseases like pancreatic cancer, tuberculosis, and COVID-19, as well as its role in cell metabolism and connections to other cellular pathways, ending with an compendium of compounds that can be used to interrogate ferroptosis in lab experiments
“It was an interesting experience to be an editor besides an author, it requires another level of skills in terms of communication, setting deadlines, proofreading etc,” Florez says. “I definitely enjoyed the experience, it gave me useful insights into what is like to be an editor behind the scenes and understand closely the publication process
Congratulations to the book’s editors and authors! For more information on Florez’s research, check out his postdoc spotlight here.
