Three hundred attendees from twenty-four countries attended the recent SIMB Conference on Natural Product Discovery and Development in the Post-genomic Era. Members representing the Korean Society for Microbiology and Biotechnology and the Society for Actinomycetes Japan were well represented with over 70 delegates. The four-day meeting featured keynote and banquet talks by Greg Verdine, Warp Drive Bio and Julian Davies, University of British Columbia as well as six general sessions and over 125 posters. Many thanks to the international organizing committee and our corporate sponsors. Special thanks go to conference program chairs Richard Baltz, CognoGen Biotechnology Consulting and SIMB Past President, Leonard Katz, SynBerc, UC-Berkeley for developing.

A special issue of the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (JIMB) will feature selected papers from the meeting and is scheduled for publication in early 2016.

We are kicking off the 37th Symposium with a bang. In lieu of a keynote speaker, we are opening the meeting with an hour-long poster preview session. Forty presenters will be chosen from accepted poster submissions to present their work on one slide in one minute in the main meeting room. No questions, no comments. This is an opportunity to preview your poster to the entire meeting and get your colleagues excited to see your work! If you are interested in being considered for this opportunity, please be sure to check the appropriate box when you submit your abstract. Posters only, selected oral presentations are excluded. Students are highly encouraged to try this!

Announcing JIMB Open Access Month: Selected articles from the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (JIMB) are now available on an open access basis through December 31, 2014 only. A subscription to JIMB is included as an SIMB membership benefit.

View list of available articles.
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The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has announced that Dr. Debbie Yaver will be presented with the 2014 BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology at the 2014 BIO Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy, which will take place 7-9 December in San Diego. Dr. Yaver will deliver a brief address at the conference.

More than twenty female leaders in industrial biotechnology were nominated for the award, which honors the legacy of Rosalind Franklin, who aided in the expansion of biotechnology and helped pave the way for women in the field.

Dr. Yaver’s accomplishments and dedication stood out to the Rosalind Franklin Award Selection Committee, who selected her as the inaugural recipient. “Dr. Yaver’s work and leadership in engineering industrial microorganisms embodies the spirit of Rosalind Franklin and her pioneering efforts,” said Brent Erickson, Executive Vice President at BIO.
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The 3rd Recent Advances in Microbial Control Conference (RAMC) held November 9-12 in San Francisco was well attended and featured topics ranging from microbial detection and control on the international space station to sustainability during the keynote talk by Dow Microbial Control, to novel methods to control pathogens in food, treatment strategies for microbial control in oil and gas production; new rapid detection methods and FDA talk on novel moves toward biological control of human foodborne illness associated with commercial crop production. Comments ranged from “This is REAL microbiology” to “This meeting is like a Gordon Conference without the ski slope . . .” Dates for the 4th RAMC in fall 2016 will be announced.