Issue 12, June 2016
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Quarterly Newsletter of the Belgian Society for Microbiology Issue no. 12, June 2016 Contents Welcome by the president of BSM Page 1 News from FEMS Page 2 Annual Meeting 2016 Page 3 Membership Page 6 Book announcement Page 7 PhD Corner Page 9 Announcement of microbiology meetings Page 13 Job offer Page 16 Nominations New BSM Board Members Page 17 Composition of the BSM Board Page 19 Welcome Dear microbiologist, I am pleased to present this BSM Newsletter, albeit somewhat later than expected, because we wanted to include all details for the forthcoming annual meeting. This meeting will take place on October 28, 2016 in Brussels (Academy Palace) and will be jointly organized with the Belgian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The topic of the meeting is Microbiome and Host Metabolism. Several experts in the field have accepted to give an overview in specific domains of this new and exciting topic. For more details of the program and the speakers, see p 3. We take the opportunity of this Newsletter to remind you to renew your BSM membership or join BSM as a new member. The membership gives free access to the BSM organized events, and reductions for attending BSM sponsored meetings. Moreover, by joining BSM, you are also member of the Federation of the European Microbiological Societies, which provides various grants. More details and deadlines are described on p 6. The membership registration form can be found on the BSM Website: http://www.belsocmicrobio.be/BSM/Home.html. If you wish to verify whether you already paid your membership fee, please contact BSM secretariat. We are currently working on a system by which members can check themselves their payment status at any time. During the lunch break at the Annual Symposium we will have a meeting of the General Assembly of the Society. One of the issues to be submitted for approval by the members will be the new composition of the Executive Board. The change was necessary in order to comply with the Statutes of the Society. These Statutes can be found on the BSM website. Details about nominations of new board members can be found on p 15. 1 Jef Anné, President BSM News from FEMS The 7th Congress of European Microbiologists is one of the leading meetings of its kind and will connect thousands of microbiologists from around the world. FEMS 2017 will feature symposia and workshops led by prominent scientists in their respective fields. The goal of this international gathering is to provide a comprehensive forum for the exploration and FEMS is the Federation of European discussion of various topics in Microbiological Societies, and its microbiology. FEMS 2017 will be held main mission is to advance and unify 9-13 July 2017 in Valencia, Spain. microbiology knowledge. FEMS brings together 53 member societies from Call for FEMS grants applications 36 European countries, covering over Members of FEMS Member Societies 30000 microbiologists. Belgium is can apply for research fellowships represented in FEMS by BSM, and our and/or support when organizing a FEMS delegate is Paul Cos meeting. (UAntwerpen). FEMS Research Grants. Applicants should be active microbiologists, having At the 6th Congress of European obtained their highest degree less than Microbiologists (FEMS 2015) 7-11 five years prior to the application June 2015 in Maastricht, one of the deadline date or be a PhD student. They workshops was Scientific should be a member of a FEMS Publications explained. The Member Society, at least one year presentations of this workshop are before applying and be a resident in a available for download here. European country or a country that has a FEMS member. Other grants are: FEMS Meeting Attendance Grants; FEMS Meeting Grants; FEMS National & Regional Congresses Grants. For more information how to apply for these grants, go to the FEMS website2 (http://www.fems-microbiology.org). BSM Annual Meeting 2016 - Microbiome and Host Metabolism 28 October 2016, Academy Palace, Hertogsstraat, 1, Rue Ducale, 1000 Brussels This contact forum, with the support of the The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium, is jointly organized by BSM and the Belgian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the National Committees of Microbiology and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 3 BSM Annual Meeting 2016 - Microbiome and Host Metabolism 28 October 2016, Academy Palace, Hertogsstraat, 1, Rue Ducale, 1000 Brussels Patrice D. Cani is researcher from the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research, group leader in the Metabolism and Nutrition lab, and Vice-President of the Louvain Drug Research Institute from the UCL, Brussels, Belgium. He is co-director of the European Associated Laboratory: “NeuroMicrobiota” (INSERM, Toulouse, France/UCL). He is dietitian (1998), earned one M.Sc. in Nutrition (2000) and a second M.Sc. in Health Sciences and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences (2005). Dr. Cani is WELBIO investigator and recipient of prestigious grants ERC Starting Grant 2013 (ENIGMO); the prize “Baillet Latour Grant for Medical Research 2015”, as well as the International Prize of Physiology Lucien Dautrebande. He is author and co- author of more than 155 scientific research publications, he as an h-index of 50 (citations >11500). He is member of several international associations, member of the Alumni College from the Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences and founding member of the Belgian Nutrition Society. Tom Van de Wiele obtained a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences from Ghent University with research stays at the University of Saskatchewan and McGill University. As associate professor he currently holds a chair in Host Microbe Interaction Technology at the Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET) at Ghent University, Belgium. His primary research interests deal with the study of the gut microbiome, its metabolic potency, the interactions with the host and the development of methods to steer the gut microbiome in a health- promoting direction. His group is broadly expertised in the in vitro simulation of gastrointestinal digestive processes and the mucosal microenvironment. The research of Tom Van de Wiele has resulted in a scientific output of more than 150 peer-reviewed international publications (h-index 29) and the participation as invited speaker in many international conferences. In addition, the gastrointestinal microbiological expertise has resulted in the creation of a spin-off company, ProDigest, which delivers service-based research for the food, feed and pharmaceutical industry. Willem M. de Vos obtained a PhD at Groningen University, partly done at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. He is over 25 years Professor at Wageningen University, holds there the Chair of Microbiology, and also serves as Professor of Human Microbiomics at the Faculty of Medicine in Helsinki. He has supervised >100 PhD students, published >500 papers, and has presently an ISI h-index >100 (GS >120). His research aims to understand and exploit microbes using molecular, (meta)genomics and systems approaches. His current interest is focused on the human intestinal tract microbiota and its relation with health and disease. BSM Annual Meeting 2016 - Microbiome and Host Metabolism 28 October 2016, Academy Palace, Hertogsstraat, 1, Rue Ducale, 1000 Brussels Gabriele Berg obtained her diploma in biology (ecology) from Rostock University (Germany) in 1986 and her Ph.D. degree in microbiology from the same university. She spent one year (1987) at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität in Greifswald to study biotechnology. In 2003 she got a Heisenberg grant from the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and became full professor in environmental biotechnology at Graz University of Technology (Austria) in 2005. Her research interests are focused on plant-associated microorganisms, especially to understand their structure, function and interaction with plants and pathogens. Another focus is to translate the results into new biotechnological concepts for our environment, e.g. for biological control of plant and human pathogens. Results have published in more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and in several patents (h-index 42). Within ACIB Gabriele Berg is responsible for metagenomics and new bioprocesses. https://scholar.google.at/citations?user=TeMrTQQAAAAJ&hl=de Jelle Matthijnssens obtained a BOF/ZAP position at the KULeuven in 2015 in the department of Microbiology and Immunology and is the head of the Laboratory of Viral Metagenomics. He is chairman of the Rotavirus Classification Working Group and the Study Group Reoviridae of the ICTV. He is author of 118 papers , has a H-index of 31 and was cited more than 4200 times. His research focusses on the viral component of the microbiome, “the virome”, using shotgun based metagenomics approaches. A sample treatment procedure to efficiently purify viral particles for viral metagenomics was fully optimized and is now being applied in various studies on: 1) the gut virome/microbiome recruitment dynamics during the first year of life of healthy infants, 2) the role of the gut virome in human disease such as IBD and various liver disorders, 3) the risk of zoonotic bat viruses to cause gastroenteritis in humans in Cameroon, 4) identification of known and novel mosquito-borne arbovirus, and 5) the role of the honeybee (Apis mellifera) virome in winter loss. Eugene Rosenberg received his BSc in chemistry at UCLA and PhD in biochemistry at Columbia University studying the chemical structures of bacterial capsules. After postdoctoral research with Lord Todd on DNA chemistry in Cambridge, England, he joined the Microbiology Department at UCLA, becoming an Associate Professor in 1967. In 1970, he accepted the position of Professor of Microbiology at Tel Aviv University, where he has remained, becoming Professor Emeritus in 2004. He has published over 270 articles , 11 books and 15 patents. His research has included Myxobacteriology, petroleum bioremediation and bioemulsifiers, coral microbiology and the role of microbes in the evolution of animals and plants.