News from the IVACS Section
Greetings to the Membership of the In Vitro Animal Cell Sciences Section (IVACS) of the SIVB
The 2010 Society for In Vitro Biology meeting took place on June 6th -11th in St. Louis, Missouri in conjunction with the 12th International Association of Plant Biotechnology (IAPB). The IVACS annual business meeting took place on June 7th from 8 – 9pm. A summary of our meeting is included below.
I. The newly elected IVACS leadership team was introduced at the business meeting.
Secretary – Cynthia Goodman
Vice-Chair Program – Brad Upham
Vice-Chair Membership – Yvonne Reid
Chair – Michael Fay
II. We recognized and thanked the previous IVACS leadership team for their service to the SIVB.
Secretary – Guido Caputo
Vice-Chair Program – Cynthia Goodman
Vice-Chair Membership – Richard Heller
Chair – Dennis Laska
III. We recognized and thanked J. Denry Sato for the great job he has done as Editor and Chief of In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology-Animal. We are now publishing single month issues of the journal again! Denry also coordinated a special issue of the journal on the topic of human embryonic stem cells in collaboration with the ISCI.
IV. We recognized and thanked John Harbell and his team for their fundraising efforts. We also thanked the following Sponsors of the 2010 Congress for their financial support.
- Alternatives Research and Development
- Altria Group, Inc.
- Boston Children’s Hospital
- Colgate Palmolive Company
- Johnson and Johnson
- Mary Kay, Inc.
- National Anti-Vivisection Society in cooperation with the International foundation for Ethical Research
V. One of the major points of discussion at our business meeting was the alarming decline in the regular membership of the SIVB. From 2009 to 2010 the SIVB experienced a 19.9% drop in regular members. As members of IVACS we all need to be active in the recruitment of new members to the SIVB! Tell your students and colleagues about the SIVB and encourage them to join our Society and participate with our annual meeting. Included below are some of the current initiatives for recruiting new members to the SIVB.
- Go to the SIVB website and fill out the online member referral form. The SIVB will send the referred prospective member a personal invitation and they will receive $10 off their membership.
- For every new member you refer that joins the SIVB you will be entered into a monthly drawing for a $100 gift certificate. I received a $100 gift card at the meeting in St. Louis for referring a new member.
- If you recruit five new members who join the SIVB, you will receive complimentary annual meeting registration.
VI. The IVACS Program Committee is actively working on planning the 2011 SIVB meeting which will take place June 4th – 8th at the Marriott Raleigh City Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. We thank Cynthia Goodman for serving as the Program Chair and Brad Upham as the IVACS co-chair for the meeting. For more information on the meeting please visit the SIVB website at http://www.sivb.net/meetings/. Tell your students and colleagues about the meeting and encourage them to submit an abstract and attend.
Submitted by Michael J. Fay ([email protected])
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The following Biotechnology training courses are being offered at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. These workshops are sponsored by the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences. For more information on these workshops please visit www.biotrac.com.
- Vaccines: Development and Evaluation of Efficacy, Sept. 8-10, 2010
- Principles and Applications of DNA Microarrays, Sept 13-17, 2010
- Biotechnology Techniques, Sept. 20 – 24, 2010
- Proteomics: Principles and Methods, Sept. 27-Oct. 1, 2010
- Nanotechnology in Medicine, Oct. 13-15, 2010
- Small Interfering RNA (siRNA) & Functional Genomics, Oct. 18-22, 2010
- miRNA: Tools and Technologies for the Quantitative and Functional Analysis in Mammalian Cells, Nov 8-10, 2010
- Protein Bioinformatics, Nov. 10-12, 2010
- Epigenetics, Dec. 7-10, 2010
- Immunofluorescence and Confocal Microscopy, Jan. 4-7, 2011
- Analytical Techniques for the Quantification of Angiogenesis and Lymphoangiogenesis, Oct. 26-29, 2010
- Protein-DNA Interactions: Gene Specific and Epigenetic Regulation of Expression of the Mammalian Genome, Nov. 1-5, 2010
- Expression of Recombinant Proteins: Overcoming Challenges & Optimization for Downstream Applications, Nov. 17-19, 2010
- Flow Cytometry: Principles and Methods, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, 2010