Upcoming Conferences
Nobel Conference 61 (2025): Sugar: Bringing Sweetness to Light
October 7-8
Sugar. In the form of glucose, it’s the most important source of energy for the human body…and also a substance that can induce cravings as robust as those for cocaine. In the form of cane, beets, and corn, it’s an important crop and commodity…and was a driving force in European colonization and the Atlantic slave trade. It’s a seemingly-irreplaceable element in celebrations, festivals, and special treats…and a source of “empty calories” in many prepared and processed foods. Sugar in the form of glucose plays a contributing role in adverse health conditions such as diabetes, fatty liver disease, high blood pressure and cancer…and in the form of glycans–complex carbohydrates that cloak the cells of our bodies–it shows promise for playing crucial roles in the treatment of diseases including cancer.
Nobel Conference 61 will seek to shed light on this complicated carbohydrate, whose roles in human life are anything but simple.
Confirmed 2025 Speakers
Serge Ahmed, University of Bordeaux, Addiction researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Carolyn Bertozzi, Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2022
Ulbe Bosma, Professor of History at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History Amsterdam, author of The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years
Jean Casimir, Professor of Humanities, University of Haiti, former Haitian ambassador to the United States
En-Ming Hsu Founder-Owner of Sip; Pastry World Champion
Frank Hu Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard University, T.H. Chan School of Public Health
C. Ford Runge Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied Economics and Law, University of Minnesota