Mitochondrial biogenesis: is an old dog still teaching us new tricks? Meeting on the Assembly of the Mitochondrial Respiratory Chain.

A great loss Participants of this meeting were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Ron Butow (Dallas, TX, USA), who died on 8 August 2007. Originally scheduled to present at the meeting, Butow cancelled his participation just shortly beforehand. Butow heroically battled cancer for more than 10 years and had remained an extremely active member of the mitochondrial community during this time. Butow was a giant in this field and throughout his career had used elegant genetic and biochemical approaches to study many areas of mitochondrial function, including protein import and, more recently, the organization and inheritance of the mitochondrial genome. His contributions to this field were enormous and he will be deeply missed by all in the mitochondrial and yeast genetic communities.