ISAC E-News December 2006
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ISAC Management and Leadership News
ISAC Council, along with invited committee chairpersons and guests, met in Washington, D.C. at the FASEB headquarters for a couple of days in late November to review progress on the ISAC Strategic Plan. It was a remarkable meeting for its clarity, enthusiasm and organization. Our new and very professional management company (FASEB) hosted the meeting, which gave everyone a chance to meet Tony Fragnito, Sherry Wolfe, Debra Weinstein and John Lord. The leadership of ISAC continues to work through our strategic planning, and the November meeting was moderated by Past-president, Maria Pallavicini. The goal of this session was to identify the areas where ISAC has maintained its momentum in meeting our strategic plan and where we need to work harder. Throughout this edition of ISAC E-News you will find information resulting from the November meeting.
CYTOMETRY
As described in pervious issues of ISAC E-News, Chuck Goolsby, Editor of Cytometry, has decided to focus his time on Cytometry B. This decision has created the need for a new Editor for Cytometry Part A, as advertised in this newsletter and on the ISAC web site. Dr. Attila Tarnok from Leipzig University has been selected by Council to become the next Editor and will assume those responsibilities starting January 1, 2007. We extend our congratulations to Attila and best wishes for moving our journal into a new phase.
Chuck Goolsby has done an outstanding job of shepherding Cytometry, and we extend our most heartfelt thanks to Chuck. One of the measures of his success can be found in the citation index, which has increased dramatically in 2006. While this calculation is not official and is very preliminary, it appears that it should be at least 2.8 for 2006. This is a remarkable turnaround and reflects the hard work that Chuck, his editorial board and special issue editors have made. We are very grateful to Dr. Goolsby for his outstanding efforts as our Editor for the past five years, and we wish him well in his new endeavors. We look forward to continuing to see Chuck at our ISAC meetings.
There are many challenges that face journal publication these days. ISAC has a goal of addressing these challenges and creating new opportunities to serve our membership. Please continue to support our Society Journal.
TREASURER’S REPORT
ISAC Congress 2006 – A Bigger Bang for ISAC’s Buck
by Alexander Nakeff, Treasurer
The 2006 ISAC Congress in Quebec City was a great success on many fronts, including outstanding science, numerous opportunities for networking and social and business interactions, substantially reduced registration and exhibitor fees and a most appealing venue adjacent to the wall of the old city – all accomplished well within budget.
In fact, the Congress resulted in a surplus of $180,000 for the ISAC treasury, the largest surplus ever attained. This was the result of the hard work of a superb scientific organizing committee led by Dr. Paul Robinson, in conjunction with the most effective Congress organizing effort by FASEB through the professional leadership of Geri Swindle and Jean Lash.
This new paradigm has created an organizational and financial “blueprint” and standard for ensuring the financial success for all future Congresses while, at the same time, maintaining lower registration fees to both encourage participation of more of our young ISAC members and increase ISAC membership. The paradigm also has effectively addressed previous concerns regarding potential financial barriers to holding annual Congresses, a key Strategic Initiative aimed to increase the value of membership in ISAC. Initiatives are underway to create a five-year annual Congress planning cycle that will bring ISAC more in line with most other international scientific societies that have successfully sponsored annual meetings in various parts of the world.
ISAC Committee News
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE
by John Nolan
Committee Members: Andrea Cossariza, Gary Elliot, Yuval Garani, Joanne Lannigan, Jeff Price, Alan Saluk, Bill Telford, Joe Trask, John Nolan, Chair
The ISAC Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) is responsible for providing advice to ISAC Leadership on the scientific and educational activities of the Society, including the International Congress and interim meetings. ISAC members who have thoughts, concerns, or comments on these subjects are encouraged to communicate these to a SAC member.
The SAC has reviewed the attendee evaluations of the recent Congress in Quebec City. Overall, the evaluations were overwhelmingly positive with respect to both the facilities and the scientific program. The move to shorten the Congress by one day, as well as to reduce the overall number of parallel sessions, was approved by the majority of respondents. Of course, there were the inevitable glitches, and members had many suggestions for the next Congress. The SAC is preparing a report summarizing these responses for President-elect Bob Murphy and his program committee to consider in planning for the next ISAC Congress to be held in Budapest in 2008.
ISAC supports workshops and small meetings on topics of interest to ISAC members through endorsements and financial support. Applications for endorsement or support of such meetings are reviewed by the SAC, and its recommendations are sent to the ISAC President for approval. Requests for application materials should be sent to the interim/acting ISAC Executive Director, Tony Fragnito.
MEMBERSHIP SERVICES COMMITTEE
by Sofia Maciorowski and Laura Teodori
2006 Report
This was the first year that a sliding scale fee system for lower income countries was implemented for ISAC, and it has resulted in an increase in the number of non-North American and non-West European members. 2006 was also a year geared toward student members. Our young members are essential to ISAC’s future, and we need to encourage their involvement in ISAC. We implemented a very low student membership fee (5$ US), and due to this, we now have more than 110 student members compared to 15 student members a year ago.
The 2006 ISAC International Congress also emphasized and encouraged student participation. Travel money in the amount of $34,000 was disbursed among 59 student applicants to attend the Congress. Of the 59 students, 29 were from North America, and 30 were from other countries. A total of 87 Congress participants were students. At the Congress, Dr. Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz generously donated his Fulwyler Award to the Membership Services Committee to be used for development of student membership. He also threw out a challenge to the companies. Consequently, these funds have now been matched by both Beckman Coulter and Becton Dickinson. We hope to use these funds well.
A satellite ISAC workshop was organized by the MSC as part of the 1st International Meeting on Movement as Prevention and Health in Rome on September 27-29. Paul Robinson was a guest of honor at the meeting and received the Golden Medal of Rome from Rome’s Town Councilor, Prof. Touadi. Paul is now a symbolic Roman citizen! The workshop was cost-free for ISAC, being supported by the organizers (Paola Sinibaldi and Laura Teodori). During this satellite workshop, a special session dedicated to the ISAC Scholar’s Program was held, and the European ISAC Scholars made oral presentations of their work. You can read all about it on the ISAC web site here.
2007 Plan
The MSC has established subcommittees for each specific area that we would like to develop. The subcommittees are chaired by the MSC committee members, and each subcommittee has an advisor: Dr. Darzynkiewicz for the Student Subcommittee, Dr. Krishan for the International Subcommittee, and Dr. Robert Murphy for the Budapest Subcommittee. The subcommittees are open to volunteers. We encourage those of you who would like to dedicate some time and energy to the vitality of our society to contact the co-chair of the subcommittee that interests you!
Here are the subcommittee programs for the coming year.
Budapest Congress Subcommittee
Margit Balasz, and Zachary Pinkus, Co-chairs
Robert Murphy, Advisor
Among the projects proposed for the Budapest Congress are:
Student-related:
- Poll students and student Congress attendees from Quebec regarding their opinions about the Congress and ideas for next Congress.
- Meeting sessions for students (maybe as a small satellite congress before the main Congress).
- Presentations from senior scientists on getting grants, oral presentations and writing papers (poll students for suggestions).
- Video collection of all conferences, presentations (above) and tutorials available to members only on the ISAC web site.
- Facilitate students meeting senior scientists, small discussion groups after sessions, or social events.
For international attendees:
- Organize a special day honoring each geographical site in a conference room (e.g., Asian Day or South American Day).
- Provide interpreters from the North American user groups for the foreign users for specific sessions and presentations.
- Organize a social event outside of Congress for the sponsor North American groups and the foreign user groups.
- Help foreign users interact with vendors during the Congress.
- Invite a keynote speaker from one of these countries to talk about that speaker’s: research, country, and specific needs and problems.
Student Subcommittee
Uriel Trahtemberg and Co-chair (to be identified)
Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz, Advisor
Among the projects proposed by the Student Subcommittee is the development of a student page on the ISAC web site that will contain:
- A monoclonal antibody database with user donated qualitative and titration data.
- A hub with links to all things cytometry, organized by category, and with student related links to such items as grants, scholarships, postdocs, funding and funding sources for travel.
- A collection of outstanding grant applications awarded to senior ISAC members, including explanations of why they were successful.
- Analysis of their best papers by senior ISAC members, detailing the important points of writing a successful paper.
- A “cytometry hot line” or “online support portal” where members can get help setting up new protocols from experts who will walk them through the problems.
International Groups Subcommittee
Lisa Reece and Arvinder Singh, Co-chairs
Atwar Krishan, Advisor
- Among the projects proposed by the International Subcommittee are:
- Organization of national groups to help increase ISAC membership in Asia, Africa, and South America.
- Match these national groups with active U.S. user groups that can provide presentations and other resource material.
- Page on web site for exchanging these presentations and resource material.
- Create special web sites, within the ISAC web site, for each country.
- ISAC Congresses in other parts of the world besides Europe (e.g., Alternate North America, Europe and Asia.
- African flow users and AIDS.
- ISAC trainers to go to Africa and train users.
- Indian workshops focused on HIV and infectious agents.
- Organize a similar workshop in South Africa.
- Identify money sources for these projects.
Affiliated Society News
GERMAN SOCIETY OF CYTOMETRY (DGFZ)
In addition to news from our affiliated societies, we have decided to highlight one affiliate in each issue of ISAC E-News. In this issue, we have selected the German Society of Cytometry (DGfZ).
German Society of Cytometry
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zytometrie e.V. (DGfZ)
President: Gero Brockhoff, Ph.D.
http://www.dgfz.org
History of the Society
The DGfZ was founded in Heidelberg (Germany) in 1989 as an association of basic research, clinical and industrial scientists interested in the promotion of the flow and image cytometric field. Its original name “Gesellschaft für Zytometrie” (GZ) was changed into “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zytometrie” (DGfZ) by membership vote in 1994. The foundation council comprises Cees Cornelisse, Georg Feichter, Wolfgang Goehde, Klaus Goerttler, Holger Hoehn, Andreas Radbruch, Peter Schwarzmann, Guenter Valet.
An association was born, dedicated to providing an interdisciplinary platform for interested scientists, basically in the field of flow and image cytometry. Founding members were scientists whose personal scientific development was and is still closely interlinked with the development of cytometric technologies in Europe. Since the foundation, annual meetings have been organized to provide a platform for interdisciplinary exchange in basic research, clinical and industrial developments. The DGfZ offers an organizational structure to the expanding science of Cytometry. The focus of scientific interest of DGfZ activities is the analysis of genetic, physiological and structural processes in cells. The aim of the DGfZ is the promotion of methodological and technical innovation in flow cytometry (FCM), image cytometry (ICM) and slide-based cytometry (SBC), which furthers understanding of the cell and its integration into multicellular systems. The spectrum reaches from Oncology, Immunology and Pathology to Cytogenetics, Microbiology and Plant culture as well as Ecology and includes all areas within which the cell is the center of attention.
Since its foundation, the DGfZ has been dedicated to providing a platform for interdisciplinary, scientific exchange and to facilitate communication as well as transfer of knowledge. The society is continuously engaged in innovative science, and cutting edge technologies have been developed within the community. Examples of these technologies include the first commercially available flow cytometer as well as methods for dual laser flow cytometry, cell separation and sorting.
Latest DGfZ Meeting
The Program and Organization Committee for the 16th Annual DGfZ Congress in Leipzig, Germany (October 18-21) set up a diversified meeting of experts in the fields of medicine, cancer biology, and human and environmental biology ? connected by the common application of flow cytometry and imaging.
Tutorials, keynote lectures, and sessions represented a demanding and interesting scientific program and reserved extra time for scientific exchange, for talking to industrial exhibitors about their newest highlights, and for meetings among Congress participants. Without doubt, one highlight of the meeting was the highly refreshing and impressive tutorial by the special guest, Paul Robinson (ISAC President). He did not talk about scientific or methodical details. Instead, he stressed the problem in image analysis that we are faced with when interpreting the images we see in a microscope. It was a precious experience to gain the perspective that individuals see things differently and that our brains sometimes fool us about what is really there and what we interpret to be there.
Industrial partners put together an impressive show on the latest technical developments. (Check www.dgfz.org to find a list of industrial exhibitors.) In addition to multichannel flow cytometric instrumentation, highly innovative developments in the field of slide-based analysis also were presented. The booths offered a wonderful opportunity for informal and detailed communication with the representatives.
Thanks to the local organizers for having done a great job. Also many thanks are extended to Howard Shapiro who not only gave a great keynote lecture on the history and the future of cytometry but also entertained us at the banquet with a live performance of a selection of his songs on cytometry and the cytometry business (“The Great Attender,” “List Mode,” and others).
Staff Matters and Next Meeting
A new president was elected. Gero Brockhoff, Ph.D. (Regensburg, Germany) is the newly elected president of the German Society of Cytometry (DGfZ), succeeding Attila Tarnok who held this position 2004-2006. Andreas Gerstner (Bonn, Germany) accepted his election as vice president. The tenure is two years for both roles. Next year’s conference will take place at the beautiful Word Heritage Site in Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany from October 10-13, 2007. Janos Szöllösi (Debrecen, Hungary), Mario Roederer (NIH, Bethesda, U.S.A.) and other recognized scientists have already assured their attendance. You are cordially invited to join the German Society of Cytometry’s meeting in October 2007
Imaging Success Story
IMAGING PUBLICATION IN THE NEWS – CONGRATULATIONS TO ROBERT ZUCKER
Dr. Robert Zucker published an article in the November issue of Cytometry [Whole Insect and Mammalian Embryo Imaging with Confocal Microscopy: Morphology and Apoptosis, Cytometry V69A number 11, November 2006, 1143-1152]. The data from the work was featured on the January 2006 and November 2006 covers of Cytometry A. This paper initiated a new policy for Cytometry A, which involved changing the covers of Cytometry on a monthly basis. The article has also been featured in the News section of the December 2006 issue of Biophotonics International. The images were of such great quality that Dr. Zucker was honored at the 2006 Olympus “BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition.” He was awarded two honorable mentions awards for the BioScapes Competition for the images from the Cytometry article and covers. Dr. Zucker’s images were chosen from more than 1,250 entries from 52 countries.
New Societies
FLOW CYTOMETRY UK
by Derek Davies
In July 2006, a new cytometry society for the United Kingdom was formed. FlowcytometryUK aims to be a central point of reference for all cytometrists within the U.K. by acting as an umbrella organization for the current local users groups in the U.K. FlowcytometryUK has grown out of the local groups we have in London, Cambridge, Sheffield and Newcastle. In addition to launching a new web site (www.flowcytometryUK.org), we are also planning our inaugural scientific meeting. This will be held at Kings College, Cambridge, U.K. on July 19-20, 2007. Registration information and a preliminary program will be available on the web site in the next few weeks. This Society will not replace the Cytometry section of the Royal Microscopical Society, which is currently affiliated and will continue to perform an educational role in cytometry in the U.K.
Elected officers are: Derek Davies, Chairman; Ray Hicks, Vice-Chairman; Rachael Walker, Secretary; and Ian Titley, Treasurer.
Upcoming Meetings/Courses
UNIVERSITY OF YORK
FLOW CYTOMETRY Course, University of York, York, U.K., January 23-26, 2007 by Peter O’Toole. An intensive, hands on, four day training course in the varied techniques using flow cytometry, it will initially cover basic flow cytometry but then rapidly move on to the more advanced applications. These will include cell cycle, apoptosis, cell proliferation, GFP and other fluorescent proteins, FRET and receptor quantification. The course has been designed to allow the participant to gain experience of the capability of a flow cytometer and to raise awareness of the problems that can be encountered. Instructors will include: Peter O'Toole, Karen Chance, Ian Brotherick, Derek Davies and Adrian Robins. For more information visit the web site at: www.york.ac.uk/depts/biol/tf/ic_flowcourse.htm. Or contact Margaret Newton at +44 (0) 01904 328821.
INDO-US TRAINING WORKSHOP
The 7th Indo-US Cytometry Workshop on “Proliferation, Apoptosis and Signal Transduction” will be held on February 10-14, 2007 at the Center for Biotechnology, Jawaharlal University, New Delhi, India. For more information contact Dr. Atwar Krishan and/or see the web site at: www.cytometryworkshops.com
Meeting Reports
GLIIFCA 15
by Mary Paniagua and Ryan Duggan, Co-Secretaries, GLIIFCA
The Great Lakes International Imaging and Flow Cytometry Association (GLIIFCA) held its 15th Annual Meeting in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania September 29 ? October 1, 2006. This new meeting location proved to be highly successful, attracting over 118 attendees, 25 vendors and numerous poster submissions featuring a wide variety of topics. The Pittsburg site will serve as one of three annually rotating sites for the GLIIFCA meeting ? the alternative sites being Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. and Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
The program committee, led by Kathy Schell with Paul Wallace and Tim Bushnell, put together an excellent selection of speakers. Program sessions included lectures on innovations in clinical cytometry, imaging, and cytometry applications. The keynote Carlton and Sigrid Steward Plenary Lecture, “Fluorescent Probes and Imaging Live Cells,” was presented by Alan Waggoner of Carnegie Mellon University. Recipients of the four Outstanding Poster Awards were Sonal Gupta (University of Illinois, Chicago), Diane Holder (University of Michigan), Andrew Osterburg (Shiners Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio), and David Leclerc, (University of Chicago). The Young Investigator Award went to Lori Broderick (SUNY, Buffalo, New York).
The GLIIFCA meeting was preceded by a one-day Resource Managers Workshop. In a novel approach to a Core Managers’ meeting, organizers Ryan Duggan and Jonni Moore hosted a workshop whose primary aim was the development of a consensus document on appropriate quality control in a flow cytometry core facility. Following a day of active discussion, a writing committee was formed to continue the work of assembling the document. The workshop was co-sponsored by ISAC and GLIIFCA and attracted a record crowd of 46 attendees.
The 16th Annual GLIIFCA Meeting will be held September 28-30, 2007 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Please monitor the GLIIFCA website for developments.
UK CORE FLOW FACILITY MANAGERS WORKSHOP
by Derek Davies
In early November, we held the first UK Core Flow Facility Managers workshop. This was held at the Technology Facility at the University of York and co-chaired by Derek Davies (Cancer Research UK) and Peter O'Toole (University of York). Over 30 delegates were led in discussions concerning setting up a Core from scratch, measuring the output of a facility, full economic recovery, data standards and education in cytometry. We aim to hold similar meetings on a regular basis, probably about every six months. Future topics for discussion will include data presentation guidelines and biosafety. To be informed of future meetings, please e-mail Derek Davies.