E-Board No. 21

October 2003

Dear ISDCI Colleagues

This is the first of a new round of E-ISDCI Board mailings. They will be sent out each month, so please send me any items of news, meeting announcements, job vacancies, positions wanted, paper or web site alerts or any other types of information of interest to the Society members.

Firstly, I would like to welcome, on behalf of all the ISDCI Officers, the many new ISDCI members who are receiving the E-Board for the first time. Some of you, I know, attended the 9th Congress in St Andrews. I hope you enjoyed it and will continue to be involved in Society meetings and activities in the future.

10th ISDCI CONGRESS

The 10th International ISDCI Congress will be held in Charleston, South Carolina USA in 2006. Further information from Greg Warr (warrgw@musc.edu)

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Message from the new ISDCI President, Chris Secombes

It is a delight and honour to be taking over the reins of the Society. Louis will be a hard act to follow but I will do my best.

Our Congress at St Andrews was a great success, and I would like to thank again Val Smith and her team for a job well done. Both the venue and the science were superb.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Kenneth Söderhäll who will be our next President, taking over at the 10th Congress in 2006. Other changes to the Executive Committee were the election of Rene Stet to VP Europe & Africa, and Martin Flajnik to VP The Americas. Clearly our outgoing committee members have been active in many ways and I would like to formally acknowledge their contributions to the Society over the past few years.

A number of issues facing the Society were raised at the Officers meeting at St Andrews, and I will mention some of them here. It is clear that there has been a major problem with our membership lists, and whilst we think we are over the worst there may be individuals who are still not members but think they are! Please if you have any doubts about this check with Norm Miller. A most serious knock-on of this problem has been the failure by Elsevier to send out renewal reminders. Since the major source of income to the Society is from membership dues I cannot stress too much how important it is that we get this sorted as soon as possible.

The election results highlighted the fact that relatively few members vote (around one third). It would be great if we could increase this percentage and ways to do this may include an easier voting system, allowing all forms of electronic and postal communication to be used. I would be grateful for any feedback on this, since the system needs to be in place well ahead of our next elections.

Whilst we have representation of the global ISDCI community through our Vice-Presidents, there was a strong voice to increase the involvement of younger members in each region. It was proposed and agreed that we create a Scientific Research Committee, to feedback views to the Executive Committee, with two representatives from each of our three regions. The representatives would be expected to attend the Officers meeting at our next Congress, but would not have voting rights. To start the ball rolling I request nominations be sent to me from each region (Europe & Africa, The Americas and Asia & Oceania). Any member can send in a nomination once agreed with the nominee. I will ask the appropriate VP to short-list three of the candidates proposed from their region, with the final decision of appointment taken by the Executive Committee. We believe this will give some new blood into the decision making process of the Society and I urge you to support this initiative in the form of actively seeking nominees. The deadline for receipt of nominations will be the end of November, so I can get the Committee operating by the New Year.

Of course there are many other activities that ISDCI will be involved with over the coming years, before our next Congress. For example, Martin will again be organising an ISDCI sponsored mini-symposium at the AAI symposium in April next year, where the focus will be on invertebrate immunology, and I will be chairing a mini-symposium with Mike Belosevic at the 12th Int ICI in Montreal on the Phylogeny and evolution of immune system, in July. I am sure there will be many other ISDCI sponsored symposia, and it is important that we maintain the standing of our Society at such events around the world. Without any doubt the biggest event in the ISDCI calendar is our triennial Congress. I am pleased to announce that the 10th Congress will be held in 2006 in Charleston, South Carolina, where Greg Warr will chair the local organising committee that will host us. I am already looking forward to being there and to welcome you all to what I am sure will be yet another highly successful ISDCI congress. So a final thanks to Greg for be willing to take this on.

FACULTY POSITION AVAILABLE

Tenure track Assistant Professor (or Associate, with exceptional credentials) to start in the summer of 2004. We are interested in a biologist who works at the molecular level and who will interact with a diverse faculty including organismal, cell and developmental biologists (www.gwu.edu/~biology). We are seeking a person to develop a funded laboratory research program involving undergraduate and graduate students. The person will interact with biologists and computer scientists in a Howard Hughes Medical Institute supported undergraduate education program in computational molecular biology (www.bioinformatics.gwu.edu). The person will be expected to develop and teach an undergraduate course in computational molecular biology and a graduate course in an area of research interest. Related positions are available in the departments of Chemistry, Computer Science, and Statistics.

Review of applications begins Oct 22, 2003 and is ongoing until the position is filled. Potential candidates should send a letter of application, a description of teaching experience and courses that might be taught, research plans, up to three reprints, and arrange for three letters of recommendation to be sent to:

Robert P. Donaldson, Chair
Department of Biological Sciences
2023 G Street, NW
Lisner Hall 340
The George Washington University
Washington DC 20052
e-mail: biology@gwu.edu
Phone: 202 994-6090

The George Washington University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer

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POSTDOCTORAL POSITION IN COMPARATIVE/MOLECULAR IMMUNOLOGY

One postdoctoral position is available immediately for an NIH-funded project associated with a COBRE program in evolutionary and theoretical immunology. This position is renewable annually for up to three years, contingent on satisfactory performance. Research will focus on the application of RNA interference (RNAi) to explore the function(s) of fibrinogen-related proteins (FREPs) found in the freshwater snail Biomphalara glabrata, an intermediate host of human parasite Schistosoma mansoni. The candidate must have Ph.D. degree. Background in molecular biology is required. Experience with RNAi or/and protein expression is preferred. Interested applicants should send a letter of application, CV, and names of 2-3 references to Dr. Si-Ming Zhang, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA. Email: zhangsm@unm.edu. University of New Mexico is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and educator.

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POSITION SOUGHT

ELLEN TARR, a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Alan Scott at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health is seeking a-doctoral research position from August of 2004. Her main interest is in the nematode immune system but she is also interested in projects to study other invertebrates. Please contact: dtarr@jhsph.edu

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The next E-Board will be sent out in November. Please send any items forposting to me as soon as possible.

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