ISME Presidents' update

Director Nicole Webster Reports

Despite COVID-19 related disruptions to so many of our planned Ambassador activities, the program has continued to expand into new regions and forge strong researcher networks. This quarter we say a sincere thank you to our retiring Ambassadors for Canada, Josh Neufeld and Ruth Schmidt, as well as our outgoing Ambassador for the UK Hilary Lappin-Scott. Hilary and Josh have been long term advocates for the society and have served their regions tirelessly over the past decade to promote the field of microbial ecology and build a strong network for early career scientists. We also welcome a number of new Ambassadors who bring to the program a sense of dynamic energy and innovative ideas that will help support their local and regional networks in microbial ecology. A warm welcome to David Walsh and Jackie Goordial from Canada, Attila Szabo from Hungary, Bogdan Druga from Romania, Joseph Lako from South Sudan and Laura Lehtovirta from the UK.

The biannual Ambassador evening was attended by ISME Ambassadors representing over 50 countries. It is a testament to the commitment of our Ambassadors that so many tuned in despite the difficulty in scheduling across so many time zones!

Despite the disappointment of being unable to meet in person in Cape Town, our biannual Ambassador evening was held virtually in August, attended by over 65 Ambassadors. This provided an opportunity to update the Ambassadors about activities that have been supported over the past 12 months and for Ambassadors to share their own personal experiences about the most effective mechanisms to support their local and regional communities. It was immensely encouraging to hear from Ambassadors like Monica Vasquez that the regional development activities, such as those undertaken in Asia, Latin America and Africa, have been so successful in strengthening collaborative networks across these vast continents. All slides profiling the activities undertaken in each country are available for downloading from the ISME website. The virtual meeting also provided us with the opportunity to celebrate our Ambassadors of the year: Punyasloke Bhadury from India, Kosala Sirisena from Sri Lanka (both selected for their efforts in supporting Dev Raj Joshi and Rup Lal in coordinating the first Southeast Asian Regional Symposium on Microbial Ecology) and Kasia Piwosz for her targeted efforts to grow the field of microbial ecology in Eastern Europe.

Guiding the Ambassador program over the past six years in conjunction with the ​full support of the ISME executiv​es and the dedication of my co-Director Cecilia Alonso has been an incredibly enriching and rewarding experience - we have gain​e​d​ immense satisfaction from w​atching local and regional networks develop and prosper. To ensure the continued growth an​d​​ ​s​ucc​​ess of the Ambassador program, we have initiated a successional plan to ensure a 2-year​ h​andover period between Ambassador Directors.  To this end, I am​ delighted to announce​ that ​Thulani Makhalanyane from South Africa has​ a​​g​re​ed to take on the role of Deputy Direc​t​​o​​​r u​ntil 2022, at which time he will lead the progra​m​ ​​and Cristina Dorador from Chile will take t​he reigns as Deputy Director. Both Thulani and Cris​tina are alre​ady incredibly active in buildin​​​g​ networks across Africa and Latin America and it ​i​s fantastic to know that the Ambassa​dor Pro​gram is in such competent and committed hands.​

Member​s, the ISME Ambassador program exists to help our diverse membership grow the field of microbial ecology and reach of the ISME society globally. Please take a moment to check out the activities on the ISME website and familiarise yourself with the Ambassador for your region, as the first point of contact for ISME support of local initiatives.  

Meet the Ambassadors

Katarzyna Piwosz - Ambassador Poland The information that I have been awarded the ISME Ambassado​r of t​​he Year 2019-2​020 came as a surprise. Still, it was less out of the b​lue​ than being invited to​ be an ambassador at all. In the era of constant bombardment with humble invitations from predatory​ journal​s​, I checked half of the internet before deciding to accept the challenge. And this was a grea​t decision!​​​​

I spent most of my career working abroad, thus I prefer to attend int​er​na​tional conferences rather than local meetings in Poland, not only because they tend to cover more div​erse topics, but also to meet my friends. The drawback of this approach was that I knew few microbial ecologists in my home country. Being the ISME Ambassador has enabled me to integrate with the field in Poland. It gave me a good reason to contact organizers of national conferences and a means to support them. I attended meetings I would likely have decided not to ​go to otherwise, and I was always welcomed to participate not only as the ISME Ambassador representing the society but also as a plenary speaker or a member of award panels and scientific committees. 

Now I would like to use this experience to establish the Polish Society of Microbial Ecology, on which I work together with the Young Ambassador Robert Czajkowski from the University of Gdansk (if you work in Poland and are interested, please contact us). I also became very motivated by initiatives in South America, Africa, and Asia, and I would like to strengthen the integration of Ambassadors from Eastern and Central European countries. Robert and I have ambitious plans and we hope to report on our success in the next year's Ambassador report.​​

Shady Amin - Ambassador United Arab Emirates During February 2020, UAE Ambassador Shady Amin organized a confere​nce ​ar​ou​n​d​ the topic of microbial ecology in arid regions, with a strong focus on the Middle E​ast and the Persian Gulf. The conference explored the lates​t ​d​e​v​elopments in the field of microbial ecology combined with an exploration of new technologies that enhance this expl​oration within the​ ​region. The major outcomes of the conference were to bring together scientists from around the region to summarize and discuss their common and special research interes​ts/findings in the field of microbial ecology, build networks and promote collaborations between scientists in the region and with European/US/Australian scientists, and establish a “Middle-Eastern Society of Microbial Ecologists” that will work under t​he ​umbrella of ISME to coordinate future research activities and collaborations in the region in microbial ecology and to organize future meetings that rotates around the different countries. The second leg of the conference will now be held at Kuwait University, Kuwait, in 2021 or 2022, depending on travel restrictions. The organizing committee for the society will be incorporating other ISME Ambassadors in the near future.

New Executive Board Members 

We are pleased to announce that ISME has two new Executive Board Members, Phil Hugenholtz as Vice President and Joana Falcão Salles as ​Secretary-Treasurer.

​Phil Hugenholtz Hello ISME! I’m delighted to be joining the society as the new Vice President and look forward to virtual and h​opefully in person interactions​ with many of you in the coming years. For those of you who do​n’t know me, I’m the Director of the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics a​t The Univers​it​y of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. I’m a genomics and metagenomics enthusiast and feel l​ucky to be living and working during the greatest expansion of ​microbiological knowledge that the world has ever seen. I also have a weakness for organising data to satisfy my OCD, so you will likely hear me rattling on about taxonomy and other ​forms of classification from time to time. I look forward to contributing to the continued success of our wonderful society.  Best wishes, Phil​

​Joana Falcão Salles Hi ISME​ members, my name is Joana Falcão Salles and I am delighted to be joining the ISME Executive Board as Secretary-Treas​urer.​​ I have been joining our meetings sin​ce 2001, ISME9 in Amsterdam, and it is a honour to be able to contribute to this very successful societ​y, which has placed microorganisms at the forefron​t of general ecology and evolution. For those who do not know me, I am a professor​ in micro​bial community ecology at the University of Gronin​gen, The Netherlands. In a nutshell, my research focuses on understanding the causes and the consequences of microbial communities, either free living (mostly soil) and in association with hosts (plants, insects, birds, ...). The main questions are on purpose very broad, it is exactly the idea of searching for common sc​ientific ground among different organisms and ecosystems that drives my scientific curiosity. I am looking forward to interacting with you in the near future! ​Cheers, Joana

ISME Communications and ISME Journal

As already mentioned in earlier newsletters, ISME will soon start a new journal: ISME Communications. In this newsletter we would like to introduce ISME Communications’ new Co-Editors in Chief, Janet Hill, Jos Raaijmakers and Hauke Smidt and ISME Journal new Co-Editors in Chief Josh Neufeld and Lisa Stein. ​Josh and Lisa will be joining Kazuya Watanabe as new Co-Editors in Chief. They will replace Ian Head. We thank him for his many years of service at the ISME Journal.

Hauke Smidt holds a Personal Chair on Complex Microbial Ecosystems at the Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University & ​Research. His research integrates innovative cultivation and functional genomics-based methods to study composition and activity of microbial communities. Key areas of interest include i) Microbiota associated with the intestinal tract in humans, production animals and wildlife ii) Microbial communities in environmental biotechnology, and iii) Microbes and their cellular biomarkers as proxies for ​ecosystem life history & environmental change. In this context, research in his group increasingly follows a OneHealth philosophy that links environmental, human and animal health.

Jos Raaijmakers is head of the Microbial Ecology Department at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) and Professor at the Institute of Biology at Leiden University, Netherlands. He is a board member of the Centre for Soil Ecology and of the PhD graduate school PE&RC. The overall goal of his department is to understand the ecology, diversity and functions of microorganisms in natural and man-made ecosystems. His own research program aims to unravel the taxonomic and functional diversity of microorganisms associated with plants and how domestication affects microbiome assembly and function. He teaches BSc and MSc courses and organizes (inter)national PhD courses and conferences. 

Janet Hill is Professor & Head of the Department of Veterinary Microbiology at the University of Saskatchewan, and Past President of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists. She ​was born in Toronto. Dr. Hill received her BSc (Hon) in Biology and PhD in Microbiology at Queen's ​Universit​y at Kingston, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Illinois and the National Research Council. Her graduate and postdoctoral studies included insect and plant virology, human parasitology, molecular diagnostics and bioinformatics. Dr. Hill's research interests are in microbial diversity and ecology, and the role of complex microbial communities in animal and human health. Dr. Hill is a developer of DNA barcoding approaches based on the universal cpn60 gene and her lab is the home of cpnDB, a public database of chaperonin sequences. Dr. Hill is an enthusiastic teacher and research mentor of undergraduate and graduate students. When she isn't in the lab, she is usually watching and photographing birds. 

Josh Neufeld is a Professor and University Research Chair in the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He received his BSc and MSc in Microbiology from the Macdonald Campus of McGill University, a PhD in Microbiology at the University of British Columbia, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Warwick in the UK. Josh’s research combines molecular and cultivation approaches to study microbial communities in terrestrial, aquatic, and host-associated habitats with the goal of recovering and exploiting the “microbes that matter”. His lab has recently focussed on exploring microbial communities associated with natural and engineered deep geological repository components for nuclear waste storage. Josh has served various editorial roles with microbiology journals for many years and is excited to begin leading The ISME Journal as co-Editor in Chief.

Lisa Stein is a Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of Alberta. She co-leads a research team between the faculties of Science and Engineering that aims to convert fugitive greenhouse gas emissions into value-added products using the power of microbial diversity. She is also an expert on the nitrogen cycle and works with local vertical agriculture companies to improve plant growth and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by​ manipulating microbes in their system. Dr. Stein is a passionate advocate for scientific literacy and has​ joined others around the world to bring the rich science of microbiology into elementary and secondary curricula. She is among the authors of the “Microbiologists’ Warning Consensus Statement,” published in 2019, which proclaims that microorganisms are so critical to achieving an environmentally sustainable future that ignoring them risks the fate of humanity. Dr. Stein is a regular volunteer with Rapid Fire Theatre in her community and believes that the ability to improvise is the secret to excellence as an educator and communicator. 

#UnityInDiversity​

ISME is hosting a virtual conference #UnityInDiversity on 11 - 12 November 2020.

This virtual summit will fill the void left​ w​hen ISME18 in South Africa had to​ be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

#UnityInDiversity will be fully virtual, interactive, and free for every​b​ody to attend. Be prepared for a program of invited talks by top microbial ecologists from around the world! 

We are excited to have l​ined up invited speakers from over 15 countries. During the meeting, participants ​will have opportunities to interact with the invited speakers in small breakout groups. Moreover, after the meeting, the talks will be available to download as teaching resources or for people who missed parts of the meeting. This service will be available to all registered attendees for six weeks after the meeting, and additionally available for members of the ISME society without time limit. 

If you are interested in presenting a poster during our virtual poster session, or giving a talk, please don’t hesitate to submit an abstract here from 14 September 2020 until 12 October 2020.

More information on https://www.isme-microbes.org/unity-diversity

Sponsorship & Funding 

We would like to remind you of several sponsorship and funding opportunities ISME offers. More info can be found on www.isme-microbes.org/funding

We would also like to notify you about funding from other societies. Currently there is a call for an application: 

The Life Sciences Research Foundation seeks exceptional postdoctoral researchers engaged in high-quality, creative science in all areas of basic life science. Selected postdocs receive a three-year award which provides their salary/stipend and a research allowance.

More information can also be found on the ISME website www.isme-microbes.org/other-funds