EFB Microbial Physiology Section
On Tuesday 26
August 2003 at 18.00 h the EFB Microbial Physiology Section held a meeting in
Room Rio on the Second Floor of the Basle Congress centre. All Section Members as well as everyone
registered for the 11th EFB Euorpean Congress of Biotechnology had been invited
to attend this open meeting.
Minutes (D
R A F T)
1. Apologies for absence
Apologies had been received from 8 Section members, among them 2 of the Section Committee
2.
Minutes of the Open Meeting of the Section held at Villa Erba,
Cernobbio,
The minutes were accepted, and signed by the Chairman.
3. Matters arising from the
Minutes
Forthcoming meetings being organised by the Section were reviewed individually later in the Agenda – see below.
4. Report from
the Section Chairman
(a) Vacancies on the Section Committee: please offer to help!. At the last meeting, a call was made for volunteers to help with Section Administration and membership of the Section Committee, especially for help with the organisation of future scientific meetings. Recent retirements mean that there are still vacancies on the Committee. The Section Board would welcome volunteers to join the Committee to organise specialist meetings, or help with the general running of the Section. The Section is also keen to identify a Section Treasurer who will work with other members of the Section Board in developing a sound financial strategy. Nominations (including self-nominations) are invited.
At the meeting,
the following colleagues volunteered to support the Section Administration:
Geoffrey Hamer (
Nic Lindley suggested a future meeting on “Microbial response to stress” and volunteered to support such an activity. Further suggestions by Erick Vandamme, and others, are listed below (5g).
Noting that several colleagues have not been active during the last few years, the Chairman suggested that they should be replaced on the Steering Committee.
(b) Report from the
EFB Executive Committee. The EFB Executive Committee met in
There has been a major upheaval within the Federation, resulting in the
cancellation of the contract with EFB by DECHEMA who, for 25 years, have
provided a secretariat for the Federation.
One source of concern was the establishment of 10 Regional Branch
Offices, which will greatly increase the opportunity for the Federation to increase
both its range of activities, and its membership, but might jeopardise the
interests of DECHEMA, whose annual investment subsidising our activities is - or was –
substantial. Clearly other issues,
including a major personality clash, were also involved.
Other matters discussed included links
between EFB and the recently formed Young Biotechnologists Network, Task groups
on International Relations and EFB in
Membership to the EFB Microbial Physiology Section is now almost 1000 – almost
a third of the EFB membership.
(c) First FEMS European Congress of
The Microbial Physiology Section had organised two sessions there entitled Microbial physiology: recent developments in the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles; and Microbial response to stress. This activity of our Section was also a payback to the support given by FEMS: FEMS had recently sponsored, or would next year sponsor, several of our Section’s meetings like recently PYFF 2 and Recombinant Protein Production 2 and 3, and selected papers presented at PYFF 2 will be considered for publication in FEMS Yeast Research.
5. Review of
progress in the organisation of the forthcoming Section symposia
(a) Contribution of the Section to ECB 11 in
(b) Physiology, Biochemistry and Genetic Regulation of
Electron Transfer Reactions in Bacteria.
(c) Physiology of Yeasts and Filamentous Fungi II
(PYFF II).
This meeting is being organised by
Jean-Marie Francois. http://pyff2.insa-tlse.fr See
also the PYFF2 leaflet. The meeting is scheduled for
(d) Functional
Genomics of Pathogenic Bacteria. Copanello (
Jeff Cole reported on behalf of Marco Soria, the Chairman of the Applied Functional Genomics Section. This meeting will be organised in cooperation with the EFB Sections on Applied Functional Genomics and Pharma Medical Biotechnology. Appr. 300 participants are anticipated. The programme details are currently defined, and information will be available in the web soon.
(e) Third EFB
Symposium on Recombinant Protein Production,
(f) Analysis of
Microbial Cells at the Single Cell Level III.
(g) Other interesting topics that are currently not covered:
The following topics were proposed by Section members:
1. Mixed cultures
2. Stress
3. Solid state fermentation physiology
4. Extremophiles physiology i.e. osmolites in halophiles,...
5. Novel extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) of fungi
6. Biofilms and flocs (= bacterial)
7. Microbial synthesis of pigments / colours / vitamins
8. Non-antibiotic secondary metabolites
9. Metabolic engineering
10. Co-enzyme physiology
It was decided to post the proposals with the minutes and collect expressions of interest to support the organisation of a meeting by email to the Chairman (j.a.cole@bham.ac.uk) or the Secretary (d.mattanovich@iam.boku.ac.at).
6 Sources of information on Section
activities.
Details of all of the Section activities can be obtained from the Section website (http://www.tu-berlin.de/biotec/mibi/AG_Lang/efb/) or the new EFB Website: (http://efbweb.org).
7. Nomination
and, if necessary, election of members to the Section Committee
The current Section Committee was supported unanimously by the present section members. The chairman will discuss with the volunteers their potential role in the organisation of the section, and a suggestion for election will be made at the next Section meeting
8. Any other business.
Nic Lindley stated that in the current EU Framework VI programme, any activities concerning microbial biotechnology and microbial physiology are not considered, and suggested to activate lobbying for consideration in Framework VII. The other Section members agreed.
9. Next meeting of the Section.
This will be held during the 2nd
meeting on Physiology of Yeasts and Filamentous Fungi (PYFF II).
Jeff Cole (Chairman)
Diethard Mattanovich (Secretary)
October 2003