Congratulations to the newly-elected board members who will take office at the Society Business Meeting held Wednesday, July 23 during the annual meeting.

Winners of the 2014 SIMB Election for Board of Directors are:
President-elect Scott Baker, Pacific National Laboratory (3 year term, Pres-elect, Pres, Past-Pres)
Treasurer: Jan Westpheling, Univ. of Georgia (2nd 3 year term)
Director: Steve Van Dien, Genomatica (3 year term)

The 2014 SIMB Election will begin on February, 15, 2014 and will be open until Monday, March 31st, 3 p.m. EST. This year members will be voting on the following positions: President-elect, Treasurer, and Director. An email notice will be sent to members announcing the opening of the election and voting instructions. Voting instructions will also be available on the members only sections of the SIMB website. Candidate bios are available in the November/December 2013 issue of SIMB News and via the PDF linked below. Only current SIMB members are eligible to vote in the election (student members are not eligible to vote). Results will be published on the SIMB website and in SIMB News. If you have any questions, please contact membership@simbhq.org.

Election Bios (PDF)

Beginning in 2014, SIMB News will be changing. Based on comments from individual members, corporate members, sponsors and advertisers, SIMB News will be returning to a paper format during 2014. Issues will be published and mailed quarterly to all members. Watch your mailboxes for the new, improved SIMB News! During this transition I’d like to thank the members of the Society, including sponsors and advertisers for your continued support.

Elisabeth Elder
Editor-in-Chief

Dear Colleagues,
As the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology enters its 65th year, under the leadership of our former Presidents Neal Connors and Tom Jeffries, our Treasurer Jan Westpheling and our Executive Director, Chris Lowe, we find ourselves in the enviable position of a secure financial footing.

A large part of this is due to very successful meetings we have run over the past 3 years. Success of a meeting is dependent upon the quality of the program and speakers, our ability to attract exhibitors, and effective and efficient organization and management of the event. We are indebted to the Program Chairs and Program Committees for the high caliber of talks and posters presented, to Bob Berger for increasing the number of booths purchased by exhibitors (at the 2013 Annual Meeting the booths were completely sold out), and to Chris Lowe and her staff, Nancy Gorell, Jennifer Johnson, Suzi Eller, and Espie Montessa for their superb organization and management of the events, all of whose efforts ensured success.
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The RAFT X keynote speaker is Dr Matthew DeLisa, William L. Lewis Professor of Engineering from Cornell University. Prof DeLisa will be giving a lecture on “Bacterial glycoengineering: from cellular enzymes and pathways to human therapeutics and vaccines.” Prof DeLisa is an up and coming star in the area of biopharmaceutical research and has been recognized with a number of awards for his work including Read the rest of this entry »