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Presidents' update
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Hello ISME colleagues! Happy New ISME Year, with hopes that all ISME members spent a peaceful and rejuvenating Holiday with family and friends, and are now looking forward to a productive New Year.
In the last President’s update, I focused a bit on ISME regional events, in particular the ISME Latin America meeting in September 2019, which was a huge success. Now, thanks to the tireless and skillful efforts of ISME former President Colin Murrell, and ISME Ambassador Program Director Nicole Webster, the next ISME regional event is about to take place this coming February in Pokhara, Nepal. This event, the South Asian Regional Symposium on Microbial Ecology (SARSME), will bring together over 120 microbial ecologists, representing India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Myanmar, Maldives and Nepal. The SARSME meeting program is shaping up well, and will include cutting edge scientific sessions, a computational biology workshop, scientific writing and career roundtable, and an ISME Ambassador network meeting for all the attendees.
An important aspect of ISME regional events like this one is that they enable local microbial ecologists to focus on regionally relevant issues and topics, create local networks, and gather together more frequently and locally. This is happening on an even larger scale at our ISME meeting in South Africa in August 2020, where many Africans who may have not have had the opportunity or resources to travel to an ISME meeting previously, can now attend. Our hopes are that by helping to enable these events, both local regional networks as well as global international connections are nurtured and strengthened.
ISME’s regional events are a good topic for segueing into a brief discussion on the most pressing issue facing everyone in the 21st century: Namely, climate change in the Anthropocene. This topic touches all of us deeply – individuals, organizations, nations, and humanity. It is redefining how everyone does business now and into the future, and rightly so. This will be an ongoing topic for all of ISME as well, and is at the top of the “to do” list for ISME Executives and International Board. The Executives have been discussing for some time how we as a Society can take positive actions to help reduce our ecological footprint. We have gotten some very thoughtful, insightful and useful inputs from our ISME membership about a variety of potential approaches to lower ISME’s carbon footprint. Current and future potential solutions being assessed for implementation (by ISME and many other Societies as well), include distributing conferences to multiple locations and linking them by video, leveraging local hubs to reduce air travel (such as the regional meetings that ISME is already implementing, mentioned above), offsetting local emissions at meetings (via green strategies including optimal use of sustainable management, energy efficiencies, and renewables), and implementing other carbon offsetting strategies for meeting-associated local activities and air travel. The ISME Executives and International Board are committed to working both with the ISME membership, central office, and our meeting Local Organizing Committees, to help reduce ISME meeting carbon footprints as much as is possible and practicable.
ISME Vice President Nicole Dubilier (soon to be President!) has been leading the charge over the past year on this issue, researching and brainstorming with ISME Executives how other Societies are approaching this challenge, long term and short term practical solutions, and next steps. Our incoming ISME Vice President, Phil Hugenholtz, is sincerely committed as well to this cause. We will keep all the ISME membership informed and up to date on positive steps we take moving forward, to help make ISME activities as sustainable and climate-neutral as possible.
Cheers to all. Here’s looking forward to positive changes in the New Year ahead!
Yours truly,
Ed DeLong - ISME President
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Director Nicole Webster Reports
For the first newsletter of 2020 I would like to wish all our International Ambassadors and ISME Members a Happy New Year and my very best wishes for the year to come. It has been another productive 3 months in the ISME Ambassador program with sponsored meetings and ISME activities being undertaken in India and the Czech Republic and sponsorship secured for future events in Italy, Russia, Costa Rica, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. There has also been significant progress with planning for the first Southeast Asia ISME meeting to be held in Nepal in February 2020, where, in addition to the exciting scientific program compiled by the local organising committee, there will be an introduction to the Society presented by Ed DeLong, a publishing workshop led by Colin Murrell and Ed DeLong, a special session supporting women in microbial ecology led by Nicole Webster and a detailed Ambassador workshop to determine mechanisms to best support the growth of microbial ecology in Southeast Asia. We would also like to formally welcome two new Ambassadors to Estonia- Prof Veljo Kisand and Dr Daniel Herlemann. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all of our Ambassadors for the hard work they undertake to promote microbial ecology and the society in their respective regions. Members, 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 familiarise yourself with the Ambassador for your region as they are the first point of contact for ISME support of local initiatives.
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Left Panel: ISME Ambassador funding was provided to Rup Lal, Ambassador to India to undertake a “Hands on to Computational Biology for (Meta) Genomics Analysis” at the International Conference ‘Current trends in microbiology and microbiome research: A Global perspective’.
Right Panel: ISME Ambassador funding was provided to Petr Baldrian, Ambassador to the Czech Republic for the meeting “The microbial diversity and functioning of forest soil ecosystems” which was held at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Praha.
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Nicole Webster - ISME Board Member
Please renew/sign-up for your ISME membership and enjoy the symposium discount to ISME18 coming August in Cape Town!
To check your current status of membership, please log onto our website with your account and look for your last order status, which will tell you when your 1 or 2 year membership will expire.
If you are still deciding whether or not to renew, or just haven't gotten around to it yet, we are reminding you that with ISME membership you can:
- Get a registration fee discount for our upcoming symposium
- Become part of a global network and community where you can easily connect with your peers
- Place events or jobs withing the field
- Get access to our publications in The ISME Journal
We hope that you will take the time to renew your membership and remain part of our ISME community. It couldn't be easier - just follow these two steps:
- Create a new account or log in to your existing ISME account using your username and a password (you can always reset your password if you don't remember it),
- Choose the membership type that suits your wishes, add it to your shopping cart and proceed to check out.
Phil Hugenholtz - Our incoming Vice President
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 As our ISME President Ed DeLong already mentioned in his column, Phil Hugenholtz (Australian Centre for Ecogenomics - The University of Queensland) is our incoming Vice President. He will start his term after ISME18.
Phil Hugnholtz developed a career in microbiology and genomics in the USA and Australia. He works now at the Centre for Ecogenomics. The Centre conducts culture-independent sequence-based research across a wide range of environmental, engineered and clinical ecosystems underpinned by a genome-based evolutionary framework of a single organism.
We are happy to welcome Phil to our Executive Board and we look forward to many years of cooperation!
IWA/ISME BioCluster Awards 2020
IWA and ISME are now opening the call for nominations for the ISME/IWA BioCluster Awards 2020.
The ISME/IWA BioCluster prize is awarded to an IWA or ISME member whose research has been internationally recognized to be of unusual merit for linking microbiological and engineering sciences in the field of water and wastewater treatment. Senior scientists as well as young scientists considered to be rising stars in this field can be nominated. Nominations for the award must be made by a current IWA and/or ISME member.
This award will be presented at the next ISME Congress: 18th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology that will take place in Cape Town, South Africa on 9-14 August 2020. The winner of the award will also be invited to the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark 18-23 October 2020.
Deadline for submissions: 1 April 2020
Submissions will be judged by an international evaluation committee, consisting of both IWA and ISME members. Two prizes will be given: a Grand Prize and a Rising Star Prize. More info on critera and nomination form can be found here
Roundtable Proposals
There is an opportunity to organize your own session at ISME18! We are still welcoming Roundtable Proposals until 29 February 2020. For more information on how to apply, please read the guidelines.
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Events ISME is involved with
An overview of events ISME is involved with can be found on our website. Please note, as an ISME member you can place events on our website yourself.
Here's a short list of events sponsored or endorsed by ISME in 2020.
Date: 12 February 2020 Date: 10 June 2020
Location: Pokhara, Nepal Location: Dundee, England
Date: 27 August 2020 Date: 15 September 2020
Location: Napels, Italy Location: Warsaw, Poland
Date: 18 October 2020
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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