FAL Dec2011

December 2011

A F F I L I AT E S L E T T E R The official newsletter for FEMS Affiliates

ANNOUNCEMENT The FEMS Central Office will be closed from Monday, December 26, 2011 to Friday, December 30, 2011.

Regular working hours will resume on Monday, January 2, 2012.

We wish you all Happy Holidays!

ERRATUM FEMS Affiliates Letter , November 2011: It was reported in the last issue of the FEMS Affiliates Letter that the next FEMS Congress will be held on 21-27 July 2013.

The date should be 21-25 July 2013. Our excuses for this error.

Year 2011 is another important year for FEMS. The highlights of the year include the biennial FEMS Congress, a new Publications Manager, additional communications tools and a new member society.

The year started with a new FEMS social media channel. FEMS on Facebook was launched before the end of 2010 and officially took off in the beginning of 2011. This means more ways to connect to FEMS and reach microbiologists all over the world. In addition, the FEMS Affiliates Letter got a makeover. It is now offered in 3 different digital versions -- PDF, EPUB and Pageturn -- and contains more pages.

The second quarter of the year was marked with events here and there.

In April, FEMS was at the Centenary of the Dutch Society for Microbiology in Papendal, The Netherlands. In June, the FEMS booth was present during the ESPID Congress in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Before the month of June ended, the FEMS booth was again put up at the FEMS Congress in Geneva, Switzerland. The said congress is the 4th event of its kind organised by FEMS. It has largest number of participants of all FEMS congresses.

Just last month, you received the latest information on the next FEMS

Congress. This will be held on July 2125, 2013 in Leipzig, Germany.

Late September, the FEMS Executive Board and Society Delegates met in Leuven, Belgium for the annual Council Meeting.

This event marked the last day of Dr Fergus Priest (UK) as Publications Manager and formally hailed Dr James Prosser (UK) to serve in his place.

Elections were also held for the positions of Secretary-General and Grants Secretary. Next year in September, Drs Stefano Donadio (Italy) and Jaroslav Spizek (Czech Republic) will formally start as Secretary-General and Grants Secretary respectively.

FEMS was also recently joined by the Italian Society for Agriculture, Food and Environmental Microbiology (Societa Italiana di Microbiologia AgroAlimentare e Ambientale [SIMTREA]) as a full-fledged member society.

2011 was quite a busy year but there is more to accomplish when 2012 begins and we hope you will join us in all our endeavors and undertakings in the year to come.

For the freshest FEMS-related news, follow us on Twitter and connect with us on Facebook.

www.fems-microbiology.org

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The Dutch Society for Microbiology (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Microbiologie) is now formally named the Royal Dutch Society for Microbiology (Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging voor Microbiologie). This is in commemoration of its 100th year of existence.

The distinction was awarded by the Queen’s Commissioner in the Province of South Holland Mr Jan Franssen on December 15, 2011 at the Kluyver Laboratory on Julianalaan in Delft, The Netherlands.

To celebrate the event, several activities -- a lunch, visit to the Beijerink museum and get-together drinks -were prepared.

The Dutch Society for Microbiology is a member-society of FEMS and caters to microbiologists not only in The Netherlands but in the Flanders region as well. It consists of around 1200 members in The Netherlands and Belgium.

Top: Mr Jan Franssen hands NVvM the predicate.

Bottom: Mr Jan Franssen gives a speech as the Queen’s representative.

The Federation of European Microbiological Societies joined the Life Sciences Momentum (LSM) 2011 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands last November 22.

The LSM is an annual affair for all who are interested in the field of life sciences in The Netherlands. Going on for more than a decade, it has been an important part in the yearly calendar of scientists, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, industry representatives, NGOs, journalists and students who are into the field.

This year’s event is the eleventh to date and focused on the topic “Science for Society” with Dr Craig Venter as Special Guest. The concentration was on the benefits of life sciences research for patients, consumers, companies and the environment.

Top and bottom: Images taken during LSM 2011.

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FEMS was presented during the lunch break with a powerpoint presentation.

www.fems-microbiology.org

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FEMS sponsors a heap of microbiology-related meetings each year as part of its mission as the voice of microbiology in Europe. Aside from those meetings, FEMS also hosts or joins other events as part of its promotional activities.

In this map, you will find the meetings we sponsored and conferences we joined this year.

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FEMS-Leopoldina Symposium 2011

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European Workshop on Bacterial Respiratory Chains

Fighting Infections, a BritishScandinavian Microbiology Meeting

ISSM2011

Int’l Cytomegalovirus Workshop

Symposium of the Danish Microbiological Society

Human Microbiome

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RRP6

Enzymes in the Environment

Lactic Acid Bacteria Symposium

Ecology of Soil Microorganisms

VAAM2011

IBBS15

NVvM100 ESPID2011

7th ISAM

LSM2011

38th FEMS Council Meeting Int’l Conference on Alpine Microbiology

FEMS 2011

Multi-Drug Efflux Systems

Power of Fungi

Biofilms in Nasocomial Fungal Infections

NCY2011

HFP2011 Balkan Congress of Microbiology Int’l Fungal Cell Wall Meeting

Comparative Genomics of Eukaryotic Microorganisms

Int’l Lancefield Symposium

SIBGBM Nat’l Meeting

23rd SSM Meeting

www.fems-microbiology.org

Nat’l ISV Congress

Nat’l Congress for Clinical Microbiology

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11 ber 20

Septem

December 2011 Tuberculosis is at the heart of the new issue of the FEMS Focus.

Just like the three previous copies, it also zeroes in on an important and hot topic. What makes this number quite interesting is the fact that the World Health Organisation published their latest Global TB Control report around the time that FEMS is conceiving the publication. This issue features an interview with WHO’s Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the Stop TB Department and lots of information on the disease.

This is the last edition for the year 2011. Get your digital copy here. If you have colleagues, family and friends who are not affiliates of FEMS yet, please direct them to this page so they can apply as FEMS Affiliates for free and get their copy of this issue as well.

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www.fems-microbiology.org

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The FEMS Journals remain in good standing this year. They enjoyed high impact factors as reported in the FEMS Affiliates Letter last July.

Aside from the regular journal issues, the FEMS Journals also came up with two thematic issues this year on Antibiotic Resistance (FEMS Reviews) and Ecology and Metagenomics of Soil Microorganisms (FEMS Microbiology Ecology).

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To welcome the new year, the first issues of FEMS Microbiology Letters, FEMS Microbiology Ecology and FEMS Microbiology Reviews has been made accessible online. These are free samples making all articles available for open access.

All first issues of the FEMS Journals for the year 2012 are automatically free. All you have to do is check the website every now and then to see when you can read your favorite journal for free!

As added bonus, FEMS Microbiology Reviews also has a free Thematic Issue in January.

The Journals also joined in Wiley Blackwell’s Microbiology Open, “a peer-reviewed, open access, journal delivering rapid decisions and fast publication of microbial science”. The articles published under Microbiology Open enjoy open accessibility. They are made free under the Creative Commons License.

Simultaneously, the following Virtual Issues were published through the FEMS Journals: • Polar and Alpine Microbiology (FEMS Microbiology Ecology) • Rickettsia (FEMS Immunology and Microbiology) • Apoptosis (FEMS Yeast Research) • Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology (FEMS Yeast Research)

www.fems-microbiology.org

SUBSCRIBE TO THE FEMS JOURNALS

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1 March 2012 FEMS Meeting Grants (for meetings to be held in 2013)

15 June 2012 1 December 2012 FEMS Research Fellowships FEMS Visiting Scientist Grants 1 June 2012 15 December 2012 FEMS National & Regional Congresses Grants 1 October 2012 FEMS Advanced Fellowships

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Mar 30 ECFG11, Germany Apr 10 EMB2012, Italy Apr 15 3rd MSM Workshop, The Netherlands Apr 18 ES5, United Kingdom Apr 22 CFG8, Austria May 10 Microbial Stress Responses, Italy Jun 3 Europic 2012, France Jun 6 5th Int’l Conference on Molecular

Mechanisms of Fungal Cell Wall Biogenesis, Croatia Jun 18 8th INRA-RRI Symposium, France Jul 9 3rd Summer Course on Mycology, Hungary Jul 15 19th Congress of the IOM, France Aug 19 ISME14, Denmark Aug 25 Microbial Metabolites, Croatia Sep 9 18th IPNC, Germany Sep 10 9th Int’l Congress on Extremophiles, Spain Sep 10 Tuberculosis 2012, France Sep 16 9th IMYA, Italy Sep 23 CESAR 2012, Croatia Okt 25 Actinobacteria within Soils, Germany Nov 14 Marine Microbiology and Biotech, Ireland

1 April 2012 1 September 2012 FEMS Meeting Attendance Grants

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Full list of upcoming FEMS-sponsored meetings, 2012

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Professor Emerita P. Helena Mäkelä, former FEMS President, passed away on Tuesday, 22 November 2011. She was 81. Professor Mäkelä was the first Finnish woman Science Academician when awarded the honorary title in 2003.

She was known for her research on infectious diseases and clinical microbiology and was dedicated to helping children in developing countries through vaccination programmes. Her most important work is related to the Hemophilus Influenza type B and pneumonia vaccines.

Professor Harry Smith, former FEMS Treasurer, passed away on Saturday, 10 December 2011. He was the first Treasurer of FEMS and served from 1974 to 1982.

The FEMS Affiliates Letter is a production of FEMS Central Office

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Keverling Buismanweg 4, 2628 CL Delft, The Netherlands T: 0031 15 269 3920 | F: 0031 15 269 3921 | E: fems@fems-microbiology.org

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We advance and unify microbiology knowledge. www.fems-microbiology.org