ISAC E-News -- Winter 2004
SORTED Bytes
- ISAC XXIII (yes, our 23rd meeting!!) will be held 20-25 May 2006 in Quebec, Canada, at the Quebec City Convention Centre. The headquarters hotel will be the Hilton Quebec, which is attached to the Convention Centre.
- Please take note of the message from Fred Waldman, chair of the Scientific Communications Committee.
- You are encouraged to look at the reports from the six ISAC affiliated societies to see what they are doing and to pick up new ideas for your organizations.
- A recent survey of cytometry users and developers has been conducted by Paul Robinson and is reported on here and at ISAC Congress XXII.
President's Message
Your Vote Ensures Valued Leadership for ISAC
by Harry Crissman
hacrissman@lanl.gov
Every two years the membership of ISAC has the opportunity to choose those individuals they feel have the qualifications and vision to provide leadership for the society. By now you have received a ballot and a list of candidates that are running for key positions within ISAC. Each candidate has provided a statement of their qualifications and views on the paths they envision will lead to growth of the society and how to achieve the long-range goals upon which ISAC was founded.
Over the past 25 years, since the foundation of ISAC, the membership has increased ten-fold and correspondingly, the business issues confronting the society have increased in number and, even more so, in complexity.
Currently, several important decisions need to be made on major and urgent issues including: online publication of our journals, methods for improving the ISAC Web site, more efficient and less expensive methods for conducting our congresses and off-year meetings, and increased involvement of young scientists at our meetings.
Each of these issues requires concentrated efforts and long-term planning strategies including the requirement for financial conservation and expediency. To achieve these goals there is first a need to find and designate individuals who are willing to dedicate their time and energy to the tasks that will eventually lead to solutions for the issues that ISAC is facing today and in the future.
As members, we have been provided a slate of individuals who are willing to take on the responsibility of making our society the best that it can be within in the means that are available. The candidates are willing to dedicate the time required to perform these duties, even when that includes time away from their research, social activities and, even occasionally the loss of free time with their families.
All of these sacrifices are without any financial compensation whatsoever. These candidates are to be congratulated for their willingness to give back to the society some of the benefits that previous leaders of ISAC have provided to them.
Now is the time to carry the process forward and make your choices to determine who will be the president-elect, the secretary and the designated councilors of the society. The deadline for receiving your vote at ISAC headquarters is March 26.
Remember, whoever the elected officers happen to be, it is important to them and other leaders to be aware of you concerns for your society. Contact any or all of the officers and provide your input. Help to determine the destiny of ISAC for another 25 years and more. Vote now!
ISAC XXII International Congress
22-27 May 2004
Le Corum, Montpellier, France
Remember the Following Deadlines:
- Early Registration 16 March
The Early Registration deadline for the ISAC XXII Congress is approaching fast. Register by 16 March to take advantage of a substantial discount.
Through 16 March, Early Registration Fees (in U.S. dollars) are $720 ($602 + $118 VAT*) for members, $920 ($790 + $130 VAT*) for nonmembers, and $250 ($209 + $41 VAT*) for students. Late Registration Fees are $820 ($686 + $134 VAT*) for members, $1,020 ($873 + $147 VAT*) for nonmembers, and $350 ($293 + $57 VAT*) for students.
*A mandatory value-added tax (VAT) of 19.6 percent is paid on all fees. Businesses worldwide may be entitled to a refund of the VAT.
- Hotel Registration Deadline: 10 April
Le Corum will provide housing arrangements for all ISAC Congress participants. The Accommodations Department of Le Corum will assign rooms on a first-come, first-served basis.
All requests must be made by 10 April. Download the Accommodation Form here.
For more information on the ISAC XXII Congress in Montpelier, France, 22-27 May 2004, see the ISAC Web site at http://www.isac-net.org/congresses/2004_congress/index.htm.
New This Year!
The Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories CD, which will be distributed at the Congress in Montpellier, is accepting XXII Congress posters. This should NOT be a text-based copy of your abstract, but the complete text and graphics of the poster as you will be displaying it at the Congress. Word or PDF files only should be e-mailed to Nicki Patti at npatti@isac-net.org by 15 March. Only posters that have been accepted for presentation are allowed on the CD.
News from ISAC Associated Societies
Cell Analysis Section of the Hungarian Biophysical Society
by Janos Szollosi
szollo@jaguar.dote.hu
The Hungarian Cell Analysis Section was established within the Hungarian Biophysical Society in 1995 with around 100 active members. The scope of the society is very similar to that of ISAC, and the members are from the fields of flow, image and clinical cytometry.
The Cell Analysis Section is very active relative to its size and has organized five very successful meetings lately. Three of these were national meetings organized in Budapest: the First Hungarian Cell Analysis meeting, 28-30 May 1998 with 350 participants; the Second Hungarian Cell Analysis meeting, 4-6 May 2000 with 320 participants; and the Third Hungarian Cell Analysis meeting, 16-18 May 2002 with 360 participants. The program of the last meeting can be found at www.sejtanal.bel2.sote.hu/sejtanal2002/. Two international meetings were organized at Hortobagy-Epona: the ISAC-sponsored international conference, Future Trends in Quantitative Cytology for Clinical and Research Applications, 13-16 May 1999, with 180 participants. The other meeting was co-organized with the German Cytometric Society (Attila Tarnok): European Summer School, Advanced Immunological Techniques, 4-11 September 2003, with 60 participants.
The next upcoming meeting is the Fourth Hungarian Cell Analysis meeting during 6-8 May 2004, in Budapest. The program of this meeting is announced at www.sejtanal.bel2.sote.hu/sejtanal2004/.
Owed to our extremely active advertisement policy, a relatively large number (20-25) of Hungarian researchers will participate at the Montpellier ISAC Congress this year. At his conference, our society would like to apply for hosting one of the future ISAC congresses (possibly in 2008) in Budapest. For further details please check www.asszisztencia.hu/isac/. We hope to use the experience gained during the organization of previous meetings and to demonstrate the Hungarian hospitality to the cytometry community.
Danish Society for Flow Cytometry (DSFCM)
by Jorgen K. Larsen
j.k.larsen@finsenlab.dk
DSFCM was founded in 1988. We are now 114 members, including 14 corporate members. You can find information on our activities on the Web site at www.flowcytometri.dk.
The 32nd meeting of DSFCM takes place in Copenhagen on 21-22 April 2004, with the special topic cell sorting. The meeting includes symposium sessions and workshops on flow sorting, immunomagnetic sorting, and laser micro-dissection.
Polish Society of Cytometry (PTC)
by Anna Pituch-Noworolska
mipituch@cyf-kr.edu.pl
The Polish Society of Cytometry (Polskie Towarzystwo Cytometrii) is located in Warsaw (capital of Poland). The president is elected for two years. It how has 250 members from the whole country organized in seven local organizations. The PTC members are involved in scientific programs dedicated to the study of lymphoproliferative diseases, cancers, immunodeficiencies and experimental study of cell biology and diagnostic cytometric procedures. The courses and schools are in flow cytometry technique, applications of the technique, and new technologies in cytometry. They are organized by the PTC and include lectures by PTC members. The conference and election of new a new president occurs every two years and is organized around a scientific and social program. These meetings are held in the autumn and are located in a very nice conference center.
The Cytometry Section of the Royal Microscopical Society
by Derek Davies
Derek.davies@cancer.org.uk
The Royal Microscopical Society (RMS; http://www.rms.org.uk/index.shtml) is the world's oldest such organization having been founded in 1839. It exists primarily to promote education in microscopy in all its forms. The Cytometry section was formed around 15 years ago and our remit is also to promote education within the cytometry community in the UK. We do this by annual courses, one-day meetings and workshops either as stand-alone events or within the meetings of other societies.
The two annual courses cover both basic and advanced cytometry theory and techniques and are almost invariably fully subscribed. The venues are London (a two-day basic course run by Marion Macey; http://www.rms.org.uk/cgi-bin/events_details.cgi?id=flo22785246) and York (a five-day modular course run by Mike Ormerod and Peter O'Toole; http://www.rms.org.uk/cgi-bin/events_details.cgi?id=flo06361650). We also run a very successful one-day
immunophenotyping meeting (Ricardo Morilla; http://www.rms.org.uk/cgi-bin/events_details.cgi?id=imm19973475) on an annual basis. A fourth regular meeting is run by Brian Shenton in Newcastle and focuses on bench top cytometers and the applications to which they are put.
In addition, during the recent past, we have arranged a one-day meeting introducing the theory and practice of cell sorting as well as workshops at meetings of the British Society of Immunology, the British Association for Cancer Research, the British Blood Transfusion Service and the British Society of Heamatology. Forthcoming meetings include those on bead-based assays, multicolor analysis and cell sorting.
As well as a section on the RMS Web site (http://www.rms.org.uk/cyto.shtml), past Chairman Terry Hoy runs a section Web site, which serves as a point of reference for
cytometrists in the UK. (http://www.uwcm.ac.uk/study/medicine/haematology/cytonetuk/).
There are also two more informal groups associated to the RMS--the London Flow Club and the Northern Flow Group, which hold regular get togethers for cytometrists and serve as a way of disseminating information to like minded scientists, a forum for discussion and a good social interaction.
Chesapeake Cytometry Consortium (CCC)
by Mehrnoosh Abshari
absharim@ncifcrf.gov
Mehrnoosh Abshari reports on behalf of the Chesapeake Cytometry Consortium that their new Web site (for which the URL is www.ccc-flow.org) should be up by the second week of March. They are planning to have their annual one or two day member meeting in September. More details will be available in the next ISAC E-News.
Sociedade Iberica de Citometria (SIC)
by Filipe Sansonetty
fsansone@ipatimup.pt
The Sociedade Iberica de Citometria (the Iberian Society of Cytometry) was created in 1992 by a group of Spanish and Portuguese cytometrists. The main goal was to promote and facilitate the exchange of information and experiences between those practicing analytical cytology in both countries. This society organizes a congress every two years. The last one was held in Madrid, 5-7 June 2003, with 200 participants and 154 scientific communications presented.
Several members are very active in the organization of short courses and workshops assuring a good offering in terms of learning and training programs (2-5 per year) covering applications in basic or clinical sciences.
This year an international workshop, The Cell Within Cytomics, co-organized by the society and other institutions will be held from 4-8 October, in Caceres, Spain. (More information at: http://www.uv.es/cytomics/caceres-2004.html and http://cnic.es/citometria. Contacts: Jose Enrique O'Connor, Alberto Alvarez Barrientos.)
The next congress will be held in Portugal, June 2005, and one main focus will be on the contribution of Cytomics to the understanding of complex performances of cellular systems and individual patients by multilevel profiling. A new Web site will be available soon to offer efficient connectivity between all members.
Reports from Committees
Scientific Communications Committee (SCC)
by Fred Waldman, Chair
waldman@cc.ucsf.edu
The Scientific Communications Committee has been asked to establish an action plan for further development of the society journals. ISAC Council voted last year to invest 10 percent of Journal royalties back into the journals in order to improve quality, readership and marketing.
The SSC met to set priorities, so that Chuck Goolsby (editor of both Cytometry and Clinical Cytometry) can initiate these activities. We decided that our first priority should be increasing the quality and quantity of submitted articles. We will recruit original and review articles through targeted attendance at scientific meetings and increased promotional activities.
Other initiatives to bring in quality manuscripts include an increased budget for color figures, attention to faster times from submission to publication and recognition/promotion of the best articles.
A second major activity for the SCC over the past year has been discussions with our publisher, Wiley, to allow public access of journal content, and to begin negotiations for a contract extension. It was clear from comments by ISAC members at our last meeting that some sort of public access to Journal content is desired. That is one of our major priorities in discussions with Wiley, and Wiley has responded by introducing exciting new options to make Journal content available to ISAC members and non-members in the near future.
4th Indo-U.S. Cytometry Workshop
by A. Krishan
AKrishan@med.miami.edu
The 4th Indo-U.S. Cytometry workshop was held at the TATA Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India, 2-6 February 2004. The workshop was hosted by the Advanced Center for Treatment, Research, and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) under the local leadership of Drs. Shubhada Chiplunkar and Shyam Agarwal.
Eight foreign faculty and several Indian scientists presented overview lectures and guided wet workshops in applications of flow cytometry in cancer research. Four state-of-the-art instruments (flow cytometers and cell sorters) were imported by the manufacturers (Guava Technologies, Beckman Coulter Corporation, Becton Dickinson India Pvt Ltd. and NPE Systems) expressly for the workshop.
Morning lectures were followed by afternoon hands-on wet workshops. Dr. Awtar Krishan from the University of Miami School of Medicine and Dr. Chiplunkar, Head of the Immunology Division at ACTREC, organized and hosted the workshop, which was attended by 35 registered researchers from across India. Lectures (open to others besides the registered workshop participants) were attended by more than 100 researchers from other research centers and hospitals in Greater Mumbai.
Financial and material support was provided by ISAC, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, local and national funding agencies and commercial companies. The organizing committee formally announced that the 5th Indo-U.S. Cytometry Workshop will focus on applications of cytometry in infectious and parasitic diseases. It will be held during the middle of February 2005, either in Kalkata (Calcutta) or Chenai (Madras). Further information may be obtained from Dr's. Krishan or Cram.
The continuing success and popularity of these workshops (evidenced by the long waiting lists) has provided the impetus for establishing a "Society of Analytical Cytologists" (India), to enhance the sense and value of community among the rapidly emerging cytometry interests in India.
The society has not been formally announced pending the draft of a charter, a responsibility graciously assumed by Dr. Gopal Pande from the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad. Dr. Pande is a long-time practitioner of cytometry and a past ISAC Council member. At conclusion of the workshop, seven foreign visiting faculties formally handed over a donation cheque and became charter members of the proposed society.
Future of Cytometry Survey
by Paul Robinson
jpr@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
The goal of this survey was to identify issues that might impact cytometry over the next few years, and to see what could be done to facilitate new interest groups, new ideas, and perhaps identify new members. This preliminary report is based on 651 respondents. Interestingly, 323 were members of ISAC, the rest were not (sounds like some new members there?)
In all 190 different groups and societies were represented. Thirty-one percent of respondents were over 40 and 32 percent were in the 30-40 year age group. On the whole, respondents saw a couple of really important things in their interaction with their societies of interest; they want a high-quality scientific meeting, a good journal and they want to be continuously informed about events in their areas of interest.
Training and education were also right up there in highly desired features. It was good to see that 116 people were keen to review manuscripts--a chore that could be willingly spread, and 47 people said they would like to serve on ISAC council! One hundred sixteen were prepared to participate in teaching training courses and 74 people indicated they would be prepared to help develop on-line teaching materials.
With regard to the term CYTOMICS, 42 percent were positive about the term, while only 17 percent were negative about it. Thirty percent had not heard of the term or did not know what it meant. This is an encouraging statistic--it means the message is getting across and there is more to do.
Ninety percent of respondents considered continuing education important to them and 92 percent said that if they could access online education they would, but 35 percent would use it only if it were free!!
Sixty-eight percent of the respondents were from North America and 17 percent from Europe. The next largest single group seemed to be Australians.
A most interesting statistic was that 40 percent of people listed immunology as a field of interest-by far the largest single area. The next largest group called themselves cell biologists (28 percent). Highlight: 96 percent of respondents answered that they were optimistic about the future of cytometry. Concerns: only 20 of the 89 respondents who listed themselves as students or postdocs were members of ISAC. Sounds like that's a good opportunity for new members. The other concern that came out was that 53 percent of respondents listed meeting costs as a significant concern.
The surveys can be accessed from the Purdue Web site (www.cyto.purdue.edu). There are a number of new surveys going. One for "Core Managers" and one for "High Content Screening". A full document will be published eventually so that everyone can take a look at the data. These surveys are very valuable source of information to allow us to try to make good decisions on what members want. Thanks to all who participated