History

A brief history of the Society

The Society promotes interest in all aspects of research into the reactions and properties of free radicals and into their physical, chemical, biological, medical and industrial roles.

Founded in 1982, and now with over 2500 members worldwide, the Society consists of five autonomous regional groups: SFRR Asia, SFRR Europe, SFRR Australasia, Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine (SFRR Americas) and SFRR Africa. A number of regional groups have also been established within these areas.

The Inaugural Meeting of the Society was organized by Profs. Trevor Slater and Robin Willson held at The Royal Institution, London on 9 July 1982.

At the First Biennial Meeting, held at Brunel University in September 1982, the name Society for Free Radical Research was adopted, a Constitution agreed, and a President (Chairman) and Officers and Committee elected.

To accommodate the increasing size of the Society, a new Constitution was proposed and adopted in 1988 at a meeting in Kyoto, and the autonomous regional groups: SFRR (Asia), SFRR (Australasia) and SFRR (Europe), inaugurated. The Oxygen Society, founded in the USA in 1987, became a constituent member of SFRR and de facto SFRR (Americas). The Oxygen Society later changed its name to the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine (SFRBM).

The international society has held meetings every two years with the first of these being at Brunel University in 1982. Further meetings have been held at the following places: York, England (1984); Dusseldorf, Germany (1986); Kyoto, Japan (1988); Pasadena, USA (1990); Turin, Italy (1992); Sydney, Australia (1994); Barcelona, Spain (1996); Sao Paulo, Brazil (1998); Kyoto, Japan (2000); Paris, France (2002); Buenos Aires, Argentina (2004); Davos, Switzerland (2006); Beijing, China (2008), Orlando, Florida, USA (2010), London, England (2012), Kyoto, Japan (2014), San Francisco, USA (2016) and Lisbon, Portugal (2018).