May 2013 IST Newsletter 1 INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY ON TOXINOLOGY NEWSLETTER May 2013 UPCOMING MEETINGS FROM THE IST EXECUTIVE The 11th Pan-American Section Elsevier are still setting up online access to Toxicon for all IST IST Congress will be held at financial members, but their new dedicated website for this ser- the Grand Casa Hotel, Guaruja, vice is not yet complete. I will let all financial members know as Sao Paulo State, Brazil, No- soon as this service is operational. vember 3-8, 2013, in conjunc- The new IST Board of Clinical Toxinology has been estab- tion with the 12th Congress of lished, under the constitution approved by IST Council and the Brazilian Society of Toxinol- provided in the last newsletter. The inaugural Board consists ogy. of Julian White (Chairperson), David Warrell, Scott Weinstein, Jean-Philippe Chippaux and Rick Dart. The Board has met and The next Asia-Pacific Section is progressing this important initiative. One part of the clinical IST Congress will be held in toxinology training process may include the current Clinical Toxi- Changsha, China, June 14-18, nology Short Course (next course scheduled for March 31st to 2014. April 5th, 2014 - see later in this newsletter). The next IST regional congress, for the Pan-American Sec- The next European Section IST tion, is fast approaching (see later in this newsletter). A reminder Congress will likely be the IST to members that earlybird registration fees close in a few days World Congress, in 2015, but time, on May 23rd. The program is developing well and it should location and details are not cur- be a good meeting, held in conjunction with the Brzilian Toxinol- rently available. ogy Society. The Toxinology Society of India is also planning a meeting to IST Council has agreed to be held in December, 2013, in Goa, India (see later in newslet- a changed schedule for IST ter). Earlybird registration closes September 15th. congresses, commencing in Many members have already paid their annual dues to the 2015 with the World Congress Society, via our website. To those of you who have not yet paid, held every second year, rotating please can you do so now. between the 3 regions. Julian White, Secretary/Treasurer, IST AMSEM clinical toxinology workshop, June 4-5, 2013, Ma- laysia. CONTENTS Membership update & notices 2 10th Australian Peptide Confer- Special Interest Group - Student Members 2 ence, Penang, Malaysia, Sep- President’s column 3 tember 8-13, 2013. Council meeting summary March/April 2013 4 Toxins available for research 5 Venoms 2013 Symposium, Clinical Toxinology Initiative 7 Oxford, UK, September 24-26, IST Pan-American Section congress, Brazil 2013 8 2013. IST Asia-Pacific Section congress, China 2014 19 AMSEM Workshop, Malaysia June 2013 22 3rd Toxinology Society of India Venoms 2013 meeting, Oxford, 2013 29 conference, Goa, India, Decem- 3rd Toxinology Society of India Conference, Goa 2013 30 ber 19-21, 2013. 10th Australian Peptide Conference, Malaysia 2013 41 Clinical Toxinology Short Course, Adelaide 2014 42 Clinical Toxinology Short Phisalix & Caius paper, 1916 (historic paper series) 44 Course, Adelaide, Australia, Adverts for venom/fractions 54 March 31st to April 5th, 2014. 2 IST Newsletter May 2013 MEMBERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENTS IST Council 2012-2016 The IST Membership Database Newsletter on the IST website President: A Harvey has been updated, a process and just email members advis- Secretary/Treasurer: J White that will be ongoing. Please ing it is ready to download, via President Elect: J Fox Immediate Past President: P Go- let the IST Secretary know if a link. palakrishnakone you change any of your con- Toxicon Editor: A Harvey tact details (email, phone, ad- As discussed in an email to President European Section: J Cal- dress etc). The Membership members earlier in 2011, chang- vete Database is available to all IST es at my workplace meant that Secretary European Section: R Har- rison members via the IST website, as of June 2011 I was no longer President Pan-American Section: D with password protection for ac- able to use my hospital to col- Tambourgi cess. User name and password lect IST dues by credit card. We Secretary Pan-American Section: Y details have been sent out to all now have an online payment Cury IST members previously. Please system for all IST dues, on the President Asia-Pacific Section: E Grishin keep these details safe. If you IST website. This commenced Secretary Asia-Pacific Section: vacant cannot find your details then in early January, 2012. The old General Councillors please email Dr. David Bates system, of sending in forms Europe: D Warrell & R Stocklin (Chief Scientist in my Toxinol- for credit card payments, or Pan-America: JM Gutierrez & L Pos- ogy Dept.) on david.bates@ad- cheques, no longer apply. ALL sani elaide.edu.au. payments must be through the Asia-Pacific: G King & M Kini online website system. Because of file size, the News- letter is too big to email and so Julian White it is more practical to post the Secretary/Treasurer IST IST STUDENT MEMBERS - THIS IS FOR YOU - The Special Interest Group for Student Toxinologists Establishment of a special wiki site Students have been an important and valued part of IST since the inception of the Society in 1962. To emphasize the importance of the role of students in the IST, the Society has created a Special Interest Group for Student Toxinologists. The aims of the Special Interest Group for Student Toxinologists include: to increase opportunities for students to network with possible collaborators and employers; to work with the Executive and Council, IST to ensure students are included and supported in future decisions of the IST; and to train students to become contributing members to the IST and other professional societies. As part of the process of developing the student group, we have established a special wiki site which will allow student members to interact directly with fellow students. Student members will soon receive an email giving them details on how to access this site. We are also investigating a way of interfacing student members with established members prepared to answer questions on methodology. Established members prepared to engage in such a process should let the IST Secretary know of their interest. A number of student members have expressed interest in being a part of such a network, but we continue to encourage other students to become involved. Any students interested in participating in such a network should contact the following by email (please send your email to the Secretary, IST, with cc to the President, IST and to student member Maggie Gentz): [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] May 2013 IST Newsletter 3 MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT (I.S.T) this change develops. If we find you should contact one of your it doesn’t work well, we can re- regional representatives so that consider our options. they can bring it to Council’s at- One of the pleasures of be- tention. longing to the IST has been to The Pan-American section of mix with colleagues from many the IST will be returning to Brazil different disciplines and see in Novemeber when the regional how experimental and clinical meeting will be held in conjunc- science can be mutually ben- tion with the Brazilian Society eficial. It has been a continuing of Toxinology. The preliminary struggle in recent years, how- programme is contained in the ever, to maintain a high profile Newsletter and it promises to be for the clinical aspects of toxi- an exciting and important gath- nology within the IST. For this ering of toxinologists. and other reasons, Council has It is also good to see the also adopted a constitution for growth of interest in toxinology Dear IST members, a Board of Clinical Toxinology. at the national level in a num- You can find more information ber of nations, as shown in this This issue of the Newsletter elsewhere in the Newsletter newsletter by notices of meet- gives information about several and I hope that this initiative will ings in the UK, India and Ma- upcoming conferences of rel- make a substantial impact on laysia. I hope we can persuade evance to members and infor- the future development of clini- most of the participants in these mation about changes to the So- cal toxinology. meetings to also participate in ciety. The last World Congress You will also find information toxinology at the international saw adoption of a new constitu- in this Newsletter of other Coun- level, by joining the IST. tion and this has allowed us to cil discussions. The Council change and evolve in a number is now meeting, electronically, With best wishes of areas. on a regular basis, and I hope Council has decided to change that this will allow the Society to the schedule for Society meet- progress effectively. The mem- ings, introducing a 6 year cycle bership of Council is shown on that will see us hosting a World the opening page of the News- Alan Harvey Congress every 2 years instead letter. If you have any matters President, IST of the previous 3 year interval. that you would like discussed, Email: [email protected] It will be interesting to see how THE FUTURE OF THE IST NEWSLETTER The IST Newsletter needs input from IST members to make it a more effective communication tool within the Society. The move to electronic format may open up opportunities for new sections. For instance, it might be possible to have annotated bibliographies of recent toxinology publications from other journals, or reports of other meetings with toxinology content.