ISME Members Newsletter September 2017

Members Newsletter September 2017
International Society for Microbial Ecology 3/4

Charity Status for ISME

We are very happy to announce that the ISME Society has now received Official Charity Status in the Netherlands. This means that the Dutch Tax Office has recognized our service to the wider community and that we can expand our ISME Development and Promotional funds even more. Our particular thanks to Sarash De Wilde for all of her hard work in making this happen. Of course we are always very happy to hear from you as our valued members so if you have a good idea as society to serve the wider community then we welcome you to let us know. Feel free to contact me or the ISME Office. We are also pleased to report that we will be increasing the frequency with which we call for applications for sponsorship for scientific meetings which promote the field of microbial ecology. Look out for forthcoming announcements soon.

A while back we announced that ISME would be undertaking more regional activies and I am pleased to report that ISME activities including Meet the ISME Editors, How to get published in ISME, ISME Ambassador get-together, Benefits for Members sessions will take place in association with the 2017 Annual Conference of the Chinese Society of Microbial Ecology in Beijing, China on 20-23^rd October. We hope to have a large number of ISME Ambassadors from Asia attend and look forward to meeting microbial ecologists from this region soon. Similar activities will take place in South America in January 2017 in association with Ecology and Diversity of Marine Microorganisms (ECODIM) in Chile in January 2018 (http://ecodim.imo-chile.cl/) where we aim to engage with ISME members and Ambassadors in South America. Plans are also underway for similar ISME engagement activities in South Africa in 2018. Please remember pass on your ideas for such activities to us through your Ambassadors or the ISME Office.

A reminder for ISME Ambassadors that there is an open call for ideas for ISME activities in your own countries through the Ambassador Programme. Please discuss your ideas with ISME Ambassador Champion Nicole Webster. You can read about recent exciting activities in Uruguay in the Ambassadors’ Report.

Finally, I am delighted to announce that our former ISME President Michael Wagner has recently been elected Member of EMBO. (http://embo.org/news/press-releases/2017/embo-welcomes-65-new-members). Congratulations Michi, great news, thoroughly deserved.

Colin Murrell - ISME President

The ISME Journal Cover Competition - extended

It is that time of the year again! Submit your microbial artwork and win the ISMEJ cover competition of 2017
A new cover image for next years' issues of The ISME Journal is needed, will it be your artwork? Send in your best work before ~~August 31~~ September 17th 2017 and perhaps your submission will be on next years' cover!

It is easy to join the game: During the summer you can submit/send your images to our office (please find the guidelines below). Once the submission deadline is passed our jury (chief editors & editorial office) will select a top 3. These 3 finalists will be displayed on our website and members are then invited to vote!

Of course the winner receives a free ISME membership (2018) which includes 12 hardcopy issues of The ISME Journal (with their own artwork on the cover for a whole year)!

Artwork Criteria:
-It must be your own artwork.
-It must be unpublished (unless in ismej in 2017 or later).
-The image must reflect microbial ecology.
-No less than 450 dpi set at their required size in: eps or tiff format, CMYK colour setup.
-The preferred size is 210mm width and 90mm height.
-You are allowed to submit multiple images.

Where to send it to: Please mail your artwork directly to: office@isme-microbes.org with subject line: ISMEJ Cover Competition 2017. Feel free to use a file transferring tool like wetransfer.

How: The artwork file name(s) must be saved as: ISMEJ2017_your name_(and file number if you send multiple images).
Example: ISMEJ2017_deWilde_1.tif . Do not forget to include a text file that contains your name, mail address, affiliation and a description of your image(s)!

Copyright: There is no copyright transfer for the winning image. The author will remain 100% owner. We do ask of the authors to name The ISME Journal as the source should the owner want to use the image elsewhere.

Good luck!

Want to host ISME in 2022? We are still open to receive bids

If you are interested in hosting our symposium in your city or country then check out how to apply on our website. The winner will be announced next year during the closing ceremony at ISME17. For your information, here is a list of previous venues of ISME

ISME Ambassadors' Reports

XII National Microbiology Meeting, Montevideo, Uruguay, May 12-14 2017

The Meeting was a great opportunity for exchange among the Uruguayan microbiologists. It included research work from several fields, covering fundamental aspects of microbial cells biology, virology, biotechnology, environmental microbiology, clinical microbiology, etc. Environmental microbiology accounted for a quarter of the works submitted, revealing its growing impact at the national level.

The funds requested were employed to invite Dr. Mónica Vásquez (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) as plenary speaker, and to sponsor the participation of ten undergraduate and postgraduate students presenting their work at the meeting.

ISME was represented by the young and senior ambassadors in Uruguay (Dr. Karina Antúnez and Dr. Claudia Piccini), the senior ambassador in Chile (Dr. Mónica Vázquez), and the International Board Member Dr. Cecilia Alonso. They met during the conference and discussed possibilities for the organization of a regional microbial ecology meeting, to be held in 2019

ISME representatives. From left to right: Claudia Piccini, Karina Antúnez, Cecilia Alonso, and Mónica Vásquez.