• Upcoming events.

• Mission.

• Section Committee.

• Minutes of Section Meetings

• Section activities during the last 3 years.

• How to become involved in the section – ideas for future activities?

• Some basic principles that guide activities organised by the Section.

Upcoming events. 

Analysis of microbial cells at the single cell level III:

This meeting will be held at Elbresidenz, Bad Schandau, (near Dresden) in Germany from 22 to 25 May 2008. The meeting is being organised by Susann Mueller, with help from Hazel Davey. Details of the programme, invited speakers, registration and call for abstracts are available on http://qbab.dbs.aber.ac.uk/sc2008/

Submission of abstracts is open until 31 January 2008.

Recombinant Protein Production V (RPP V).

The follow-up conference of this series will be held on Sardinia, Italy, at the Porto Conte Bay near Alghero, from 24-28 September 2008. The meeting is being organised by Enrico Berardi, with help from Jeff Cole, Diethard Mattanovich and Guido Grandi. The programme has been detailed, speakers are currently being invited, and registration will be opened soon. Potential participants are advised to check the website frequently as the meeting has to be strictly limited to 220 participants and is expected to be overbooked.

Web address: www.ing.univpm.it/rpp2008/

MICROBIAL STRESS - from Molecules to Systems.

A conference on microbial stress response from different areas, including both prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbes, will be held in Semmering, Austria, 7-10 May 2009. The local organisation will be chaired by Michael Sauer and Paola Branduardi, and the scientific programme committee will be chaired by Peter Lund.

Colleagues in industry are especially invited to offer help with the organisation of this meeting and, in particular, to sponsor plenary lectures or student prizes for poster and oral presentations.

Web address: http://microbial-stress.fh-campuswien.ac.at

Bacterial electron transfer and its regulation.

The next meeting in this series will be organised for 2009 or 2010:

details to follow.

The location will probably be in Scandinavia.

Physiology of Yeasts and Filamentous Fungi 4 (PYFF 4).

A follow-up meeting in this series is planned for 2010 in the Netherlands, organised by Jack Pronk and his colleagues. Other groups from Netherlands supported this plan. Volunteers from academia and industry who are interested to support meeting organisation are invited to contact the Section Chairman or Secretary, or Jack Pronk.

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Mission.

Aims of the Microbial Physiology Section.

Microbial Physiology is concerned with structure-function relationships of microorganisms, with particular emphasis on how microbes respond in response to changes in their environment.  The Microbial Physiology Section of the European Federation of Biotechnology is committed to the promotion and dissemination of results of fundamental research of the highest quality, and to its application to the benefits of biotechnology in Europe.  The interests of our colleagues span from fundamental genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, immunology, pathogenesis, cell, molecular and structural biology to their applications in medical, environmental, pharmaceutical, industrial and agricultural biotechnology and engineering.

In serving the interests of European microbiologists, the Section is committed to being an open organisation that recognises no boundaries.  It actively encourages the creation of new collaborations between European Universities, Research Institutes and Industry, between different disciplines represented within the EFB, between the EFB and the European Commission, and will maintain close links with other Federations such as the Federation of European Microbiological Societies.

How these aims will be achieved.

The Section will continue to organise highly focused symposia on specialist topics at the frontiers of recent developments.  Many of these activities will be part of a series of related meetings organised at appropriate intervals so that future developments can be reviewed.  Residential meetings lasting two or more days have proved an effective way to complete such in-depth reviews.  Were appropriate, selected contributions to these symposia will be disseminated more widely, for example, in international, edited publication.

The Section will also support other major activities organised by the EFB, such as the bi-annual European Congresses of Biotechnology, and symposia organised by other Sections within the Federation.  It will provide Position Papers for the European Commission, expertise for the various Task Groups of the Federation such as the Task Group for International Relation, Public Perception of Biotechnology, and Safety in Biotechnology.

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Section Committee.

The Section Committee is keen to welcome new members.  It especially seeks to recruit younger scientists ready to make their debut on the international stage; or individuals who are keen to organise an activity such as a workshop or specialist symposium, or to contribute to the EFB European Congresses of Biotechnology.  The current membership, and their responsibilities, are listed below.  The Chairman (E-mail j.a.cole@bham.ac.uk) would be pleased to hear from others who are keen to become involved in helping with the organisation of Section activities.

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Minutes of Section Meetings.

Details of all of the Section activities can be obtained from the Section website or the EFB Website: www.efb-central.org.

Minutes of the section meeting at Hindsgavl, Denmark, July 5, 2001

Minutes of the section meeting at Vejle, Denmark, June 3, 2002

Minutes of the section meeting at Cernobbio, Italy on 15 Nov. 2002

Minutes of the section meeting at Basel, Switzerland on August 26, 2003

Minutes of the section meeting at Anglet, France on March 27, 2004

Minutes of the section meeting at Tavira, Portugal on November 12, 2004

Minutes of the section meeting at Semmering, Austria on May 27, 2005

Minutes of the section meeting at Barcelona, Spain on September 22, 2006

Minutes of the section meeting at Barcelona, Spain on September 17, 2007

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 Section activities during the last 3 years.

Physiology of Yeasts and Filamentous Fungi II (PYFF II) France. March 24-28, 2004.

Functional Genomics of Pathogenic Bacteria. Copanello, Italy, October 6-8, 2004.

Third EFB Symposium on Recombinant Protein Production, Portugal, November 11-14, 2004.

Analysis of Microbial Cells at the Single Cell Level III. Austria.  26 – 29 May 2005.

Meeting on Microbial Respiratory Chains: Tomar, Portugal, 19 – 23 March 2006.

4th Recombinant Protein Production meeting in Barcelona, 21 -23 September 2006.

Course on Pichia technology, School of Biotechnology, KTH Stockholm, Sweden, 20-22 February 2007.

Physiology of yeasts and filamentous fungi III (PYFF III), Helsinki from June 13-16, 2007

Contribution of the Section to ECB 13,  Barcelona, 17.-19. September 2007.

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How to become involved in the section – ideas for future activities?

The Section Secretariat is always looking for colleagues who are willing to help us build an even stronger Section – and to be our successors!  We especially welcome offers of help from anyone will financial acumen to act as Section Treasurer or members of the finance sub-committee; or colleagues who would like to propose and organise a section meeting according to the criteria set out above.  Please contact the secretary AND the Chairman, if you are interested in joining us.

Information will be supplied on request by the Section Chairman (E-mail j.a.cole@bham.ac.uk) or Secretary (diethard.mattanovich@.boku.ac.at).

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Some basic principles that guide activities organised by the Section.

·        Section symposia must complement rather than compete directly with scientific meeting organised by national learned societies that form the basis of the EFB.

·        Topics selected would attract a multi-disciplinary audience drawn from industry, academia and research institutes.

·        Costs of attending Section meetings would be kept as low as possible to ensure maximum participation of younger biotechnologists.

·        Once a successful subject area had been identified (as established by the success of the first meeting), every encouragement would be given to others to organise follow-up meeting on the same or related topics, thus generating continuity and a sense of community within the Section.

·        Ultimately, each major area of microbial physiology would be covered by the Section, activities being co-ordinated by sub-groups who were the current leading practitioners in each area.

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Updated December 5, 2007  Prof. Dr. Christine Lang, Karl-Heinz Müller