Dear EFB Members,

This is a special notice to announce some major updates to the EFB website, including the launch of the EFB's new, interactive Forum. We have included the first post to the EFB Forum today, written by Prof. Klaus Ammann, chairman of the EFB Section on Biodiversity. To read Prof. Ammann's post, just see the article below. The EFB Forum is just one of 3 major new updates and a re-organization of the EFB website to make it more user-friendly and a better source of information for everyone interested in the activities of the EFB and biotechnology in Europe and internationally. We have included a jobs listing on the home page, highlighting key new biotech related jobs in Europe, in cooperation with our Associated Section YEBN (Young European Biotech Network) and the EuroBioJobs consortium. Also on the homepage is a new biotechnology news aggregator, focused on the biotech sector in Europe and internationally. To view either of these new features, just visit the EFB website at http://www.efb-central.org

First and foremost, however, we want to encourage you to take a look at the EFB Forum. While the first posts have been made by Prof. Ammann and continue the themes many of you know so well from the Bern Debates in the format of the new EFB Ask Force, individual EFB Forum threads will be available to each EFB Section and Task Group, so watch this space for future posts, articles and discussions from your Section! We have developed the EFB Forum in order to provide you with a venue for discussion of key issues in biotechnology, both in Europe, and internationally. And we hope that you, the members of EFB, will read it and contribute to these discussions.

The EFB Forum is currently open for viewing by all EFB members and visitors to the EFB website. Members of the EFB can begin contributing to the discussions by logging in at http://www.efb-central.org/index.php/forums with your username and password you created when you signed up. If you've forgotten your username or password, follow the instructions from the "Forgot Password?" link next to the sign-in fields or proceed to: http://www.efb-central.org/index.php/forums/member/forgot_password

As a Personal Member of the EFB you are able to respond to any currently posted topics, whereas Institutional Members have full access to post new topics for discussion as well as responding to existing topics. To post a new topic (Institutional Members), navigate to the appropriate forum you'd like to post to and click on the "New Topic" button near the top right. To respond to an existing topic just click the "Quick Reply" button for a brief note, "Post Reply" to respond with access to formatting buttons, spell check and polls, or click "Quote" next to any post to quote it in your response.

For any personal members of EFB who feel that they have an important article to post or discussion to launch, please contact Anna Alsina at anna@efb-central.org

For now, we hope you enjoy Prof. Ammann's posts and his "discussion provoking" views, and we look forward to viewing your own comments and posts!

Best regards, and welcome to the EFB Forum,

Christian Suojanen
Secretary General
European Federation of Biotechnology

Dear Friends,

This is about the launch of the ASK-FORCE, a new initiative to promote agricultural biotechnology. It will replace the Bern Debates witch I moderated from 1999 to 2005. The new element in this effort is that it should be more interactive, this is why we have chosen a forum type of programme structure, where everybody as a member can log in and produce comments.
I will carefully choose the topics, so that we do not just reproduce the avalanche of good and bad news poured everyday on cybernauts. I firmly believe that the there is progressive quality from INFORMATION to KNOWLEDGE - which eventually can mutate into WISDOM - in combination with EXPERIENCE. (To read the full article and post your reply enter the EFB Forum.)