E-Board No. 86

February 1, 2010

MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS

ISDCI membership renewals are now due and must be with Elsevier before March 15th. It is essential that all members renew their subscriptions if they wish to continue receiving on-line and/or print editions of DCI after this date. Please therefore make sure you renew your subscription as soon as possible. ISDCI needs its members to survive and we, as a Society, gain financially from Elsevier by keeping our membership above a minimum level. If our numbers slip below this, we lose out financially from the publisher. Please continue to support our Society be renewing promptly. The benefits are obvious. You get direct subscription to DCI FREE, regular news bulletins sent direct to your inbox, an opportunity to advertise FREE for jobs, or staff / student recruitment and to obtain favourable rates for attending our congresses. Everyone also has a voice in the election of your representative officers and therefore some say in the running and management of the Society. Students, of course, can apply for support to attend ISDCI meetings.

Without our members the identity of our field of Comparative Immunology is at risk of disappearing. Please renew now to maintain it.

To renew your subscription, please contact our new Secretary Treasurer Martin Bilej in Prague. His E-mail is: mbilej@biomed.cas.cz

You can also renew using a form that is available at www.ISDCI.org. Click on and then download the renewal form in either PDF or Word format. Fill out the form and send it to Martin Bilej either as a hard copy, email attachment or fax. Contact information for Dr. Bilej are included in the form.

Kind regards

Val Smith (President)

**********************

Second Message from the President

A happy, successful and healthy New Year to you all. Already 2010 and a new decade are upon us and plans are now underway for the next ISDCI International Congress in Fukuoka, Japan in 2012. Bulletins will be circulated as new information becomes available. In the meantime, do remember to keep your ISDCI membership current. The success of our Society depends on the continued support of our members.

I would also like to send a personal thank you and New Year greeting to the many ISDCI members in Japan and China who kindly showed me such warm and generous hospitality during my visit to these countries during October - December. It is good that there is such a strong, active and committed contingent of ISDCI members in this part of the world and I know how welcome you will make the rest of us feel at the 2012 meeting.

Again, I ask any member to contact me if you have thoughts, comments or suggestions you would to raise about ISDCI and its meetings. I will endeavour to get back to you as soon as I can.

Kind regards

Val Smith

***************************

Studentship positions available

BBSRC Institute for Animal Health, Newbury, UK

BBSRC - funded PhD studentships

The Institute for Animal Health is seeking applications for 2 fully funded PhD studentships to work on:

• Phenotypic and functional characterisation of cattle natural killer cell clones (Registered at the Royal Veterinary College)

• Mechanisms for generation of diversity in the cattle NK cell receptor repertoire (Registered at Imperial College London)

Supervisors: Dr John Hammond & Prof Shirley Ellis
Applicants should possess, or expect to obtain, either an Upper Second Class honours (2:1) in an appropriate biological subject or a Lower Second Class honours (2:2) and a MSc in appropriate biological subjects. The studentships are funded for 3 or 4 years and pay an enhanced stipend of 17,490 for science graduates (for 2009/10; currently under review) plus all university fees, subject to eligibility. Applicants must fulfil BBSRC eligibility requirements which can be found at: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/studentships/studentship_eligibility.pdf

For further information and how to apply please go to the IAH website: http://www.iah.ac.uk/students/studentships.shtml

Further information about the Institute for Animal Health can be found at: http://www.iah.ac.uk

Informal enquiries to Dr John Hammond
Livestock Infectious Disease Program
Institute for Animal Health
Compton
Newbury
Berks RG20 7NN

Tel: +44 (0)1635 577442
Fax: +44 (0)1635 577263
e mail: john.hammond@bbsrc.ac.uk

The closing date for applications is 26th February 2010. Interviews will be held between 8th and 19th March 2010.

********************

Registration for the European Organization of Fish Immunology (EOFFI) meeting is now open! You may download the form from the symposium website at: www.unitus.it/eoffi2010. The organizers hope to see you in Viterbo, Italy, at the end of May 2010!

********************

CHARLES KOLO RATHBURN (College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA) was awarded a prestigious John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship for 2010. As a Knauss Fellow, Kolo will work on Capitol Hill in Washington DC advising Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on oceans-related legislative issues. Kolo is well prepared for his new role, having successfully defended his Master’s thesis in Marine Biology in December 2009. His thesis research centered on changes in global gene transcription in shrimp tissues in response to low oxygen and high carbon dioxide, stressors that are increasing in frequency, severity and duration in the world’s oceans.

E-Board Archive

Zoology Building · University of Aberdeen · Aberdeen · AB24 2TZ Tel: +44 (0)1224 272872 · Fax: +44 (0)1224 272396 · Email: info@isdci.org