With the 2017 Holiday Season approaching, I’d like to give a short overview of the most important things that happened for ISME last year. The big news is that ISME has officially become a Charity Organization with the aim to serve microbial ecologists and the wider community by supporting research and education. One of our goals recently has been to increase ISME engagement in Africa, South America and Asia. I am pleased to report that a team from ISME attended the Chinese Microbial Ecology Society meeting in Beijing in October. This very vibrant meeting had around 500 microbial ecologists. Within an excellent scientific program, we had several ISME events including a Writing Workshop and a “Meet the ISME Ambassadors Session”. We have similar ISME events planned in South America in January 2018 and South Africa in April 2018 where we will meet Ambassadors and discuss ISME activity in these regions. We very much welcome your thoughts and ideas as to how the Society can engage with and help its members, so please send us your suggestions and ideas via me or the ISME Office.

For an overview of upcoming events please see below in the events section.

In the New Year, ISME17 will take place in Leipzig, Germany, from 12-17 August 2018. The Local Organizing Committee and the ISME Executive are working to produce a very exciting scientific program. Our Keynote Speakers, including Chantal Abergel, Antje Boetius, Yoichi Kamagata, Phil Hugenholtz, Jan-Roelof van der Meer and Jim Tiedje have all been confirmed. In January, you will be able to Register and submit your Abstracts and apply for Travel Awards. Please keep an eye open for details on the new ISME Website.

I hope to see you all in Leipzig in August 2018!

Best wishes for a relaxing Holiday Season and a Peaceful New Year.

Colin Murrell - ISME President

New website launch for ISME

Our website got a new brand new look!
From now on members can post their own job adverts and events when they are logged into our site instead of requesting it via the ISME Office. 

A look back from our ambassadors director Nicole Webster
 

It has been a vibrant and exceptionally active year in the ISME Ambassador program, with €12,000 allocated to Ambassadors from over 20 countries to help support their local initiatives in microbial ecology.  Support from the Ambassador program is provided to cover activities ranging from local meetings and student prizes through to training courses. A small selection of ISME sponsored activities from 2017 include student excellence awards which were presented at the Young Soil Microbial Ecologists Meeting in Prague, the South African Society for Systems Biology Meeting in Pretoria, the Conference of Doctorates in Cameroon, the Joint Australian Microbiology Societies Meeting in Sydney, the Molecular Microbiology and Ecology Group Meeting in the UK, the Symposium on Aquatic Microbial Ecology in Croatia and the HydroMicro meeting in Poland; a researcher networking reception hosted at the Microbial Genomes and Metagenomes workshop in Finland; invited speaker support for the Microbiology Symposium in Mexico and the New Zealand Microbial Ecology Conference; student travel awards for the Annual Conference of Microbiologists in India, the Microbial Resource Management Conference in Belgium, the Philippine Society for Microbiology Cluster 2 Symposium and the National Microbiology Meeting in Uruguay as well as support to run a computational workshop in Costa Rica.  A sincere thankyou to all of the ISME Ambassadors for their innovative and creative ideas that have helped support the broader ISME community! 

In addition to these specific Ambassador activities, the newly created ISME Development fund has supported targeted initiatives in Asia (undertaken in Sept 2017), Latin America (to be undertaken in Jan 2018) and South Africa (to be undertaken in March 2018).  These initiatives include sessions that introduce ISME and highlight member benefits, provide social networking opportunities so that researchers can meet their local Ambassadors, deliver workshops on how to get published in ISME J as well as undertaking targeted consultation with the local Ambassadors to determine the breadth and focus of the microbial ecology research being undertaken in their regions and establish the requirements needed to best support their efforts to develop the field and the society. 

We urge all members to contact their local Ambassador’s to discuss these opportunities and how ISME can best support your local microbial ecology initiatives. 

Nicole Webster - ISME Board Member

ISMEJ cover competition winner announcement

We're happy to announce the winner of the ISME Journal Cover Competition 

Congratulations to Ulrike Pfreundt et al, ETH Zürich. She will be awarded an ISME membership.  The image shows an overlay of 62 frames of timelapse video microscopy of moving Trichodesmium - filamentous cyanobacteria - in a microfluidic channel. Filaments glide on the surface of the microfluidic device, exhibiting different types of movements: straight gliding along the vertical axis of the filament (e.g., middle), filament rotation (e.g., middle right), and rolling in the direction of the short filament axis (e.g., far right). Through an unknown mechanism, filaments come together to form tufts of more or less parallel filaments, often by a fast rotation of one filament as it touches another.       Events in Microbial Ecology January 08 January 17 January 21-24 February 18-20 May 27-29 August 20-22     Ecology and Diversity of Marine Microorganisms - ECODIM X NIMBioS Investigative Workshop: Stoichiometric Ecotoxicology Keystone Symposia – Natural Products and Synthetic Biology: Parts and Pathways 2nd Plant Microbiome Symposium Biofilms 8 MIMAS II     University of Concepcion, Dichato, Chile Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA Tahoe City, California, USA Barbizon Palace Amsterdam, the Netherlands Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Greifswald, Germany                   ISME Membership - Don't forget to renew your membership in January 2018!                                                                                                                                                And of course, our season greetings to all - A special thanks goes out to our dedicated editors, our ambassadors, and  the international board.  We hope you enjoyed The ISME Journal this year and on behalf of the executive board, chief editors and ISME Office staff we wish you all a great 2018!  ISME wishes you happy holidays and all the best for 2018!