ASM Division G Newsletter
November, 1996
The 1996-97 Division G Officers are:
Chair:
Chair-elect:
Councilor:
Alternate Councilor:
Former chair:
1996 ASM Meeting in New Orleans, LA
As the new chair of Division G, I would like to express my sincere appreciation
to the former chair, Dr. Kevin Hackett, for his stewardship of Division
G. Kevin is being reassigned by U.S.D.A. and will be sorely missed by all
in mycoplasmology. It is hoped that he will continue to keep in contact
by attending the ASM General meeting and visiting the sessions, posters,
etc. as time allows. We will miss you, Kevin!
Those who attended the 1996 General Meeting this year were treated to
an outstanding scientific program organized by Kevin and the other divisional
officers. Division G hosted three seminars and had a single poster session,
a significant achievement considering the percentage of Division G members
relative to the rest of the ASM. A seminar (co-hosted with Division B) entitled
"Proteases of microbial pathogens and modulation of disease" was
co-convened by Harold Watson and Alain Blanchard. A second seminar entitled
"The evolving role of mycoplasmas in urogenital tract infections"
was co-convened by Sharon Hillier and Joseph Tully. The third seminar entitled
"Life at the limit: minimal genomes" was co-chaired by Kenneth
Bott and Dennis Pollack. The Divisional lecture, "Mycoplasma pneumoniae
cytadherence: Houston, we have a problem", was delivered by Duncan
Krause. The only problem seemed to be the lack of time we had in the poster
session. Several individuals committed on this - one and half hours is just
not enough time to cover 28 posters. Hopefully, we'll have more posters
this year and can split them into two sessions of smaller numbers.
Our association with Divisional Group II has been particularly worthwhile,
but we still seem to have trouble with the balloting procedure. Someone
at ASM still thinks we are associated with Divisional Group I. I have been
receiving ballots for the Divisional Group I Representatives for the past
two years, and I haven't yet found out who to discuss this with at ASM.
I'll keep working on it.
Back
The program for the 1997 General Meeting will include three seminars, one co-hosted by Division B. Barry Cole and Shy-Ching Lo will co-convene a seminar entitled "Diverse interactions of mycoplasmas with mammalian cells". Chris Minion and Stan Kleven will co-convene a seminar entitled "Mycoplasma gallisepticum: a better model for mycoplasma pathogenesis". The third seminar, co-hosted with Division B, will be co-convened by Kim Wise and Rachel Fernandez and is entitled "Evasion of mucosal defenses by pathogens that interact with the respiratory tract". The planning for the meeting is ahead of last year's planning process and most of the scheduling is complete. It will not be finalized until February, however. So far, it looks like the Division G seminars and poster session(s) will be in the first part of the week. Please plan to attend and bring your students!
ASM Workshop on Diagnosis of Mycoplasma Infections in Clinical Laboratories.
For the third year in a row, the ASM Board of Education and Training
has asked Ken Waites to convene the workshop "Diagnosis of Mycoplasma
Infections in Clinical Laboratories" at the 1997 General Meeting.
It will take place on Sunday, May 4 from 8:30 - 4:30. Information regarding
specific location and instructions for registration for the workshop will
be provided as part of the general information concerning meeting registration
which will be printed in the ASM News early next year. Registration is limited
to 40 persons.
For the past two years at the ASM General Meeting, this workshop has
provided an up to date discussion of laboratory techniques for detection
of mycoplasmal infections in diagnostic laboratories. Almost 60 people have
participated thus far. This coming year, the workshop will provide essentially
the same topics in a lecture-discussion format, followed by laboratory demonstrations
in which participants will have the opportunity to examine mycoplasma cultures.
The topics which will be presented and their discussants are as follows:
Overview of Mollicute Taxonomy and Classification, Dr. Janet Robertson,
University of Alberta; Role of Mycoplasmas in Human Disease, Dr. Gail Cassell,
University of Alabama at Birmingham; Culture-based methods of mycoplasma
detection and antimicrobial susceptibility testing, Dr. Ken Waites, University
of Alabama at Birmingham; Commercial media, Quality Control, Rapid and Molecular
Methods for Detection of Mycoplasmas in Clinical Specimens, Dr. Christiane
Bebear, University of Bordeaux; and Serologic Diagnosis of M. pneumoniae
infection, Dr. Deborah Talkington, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ms. Lynn Duffy, University of Alabama at Birmingham will preside over the
laboratory session.
This workshop is taught at an intermediate level. Participants should
have some microbiology laboratory experience, but not necessarily with mycoplasmas.
The workshop is designed for persons working in diagnostic microbiology
laboratories who wish to implement or possibly improve mycoplasma detection
in their facility, persons in the pharmaceutical industry or those engaged
in clinical or basic research in which mycoplasma detection in clinical
specimens is important. All participants will be provided with a course
syllabus which includes detailed procedures for cultural, serologic and
molecular based methods for detection of mycoplasmas in clinical specimens
along with copies of numerous reprints from recent published studies on
the subject.
Back
Every year, the ASM provides funding for graduate students to assist
with travel expenditures to the General Meeting. The student must be a presenter
(usually a poster). Division G has one travel award to present each year,
but normally, there are only a few applications. Please keep this in mind
as you prepare for the meeting.
Back
Every year, it is important to recruit new members to Division G. We
are one of the smaller divisions, but not the smallest. We usually have
an excellent percentage attendance at the meeting and overall attendance
at the seminars is very good. We get lots of support from non Division G
members in our seminars. We have for several years now been treated extremely
favorably by ASM in regards to the number of seminars that we are assigned.
We need to increase our membership, however. Please encourage your students
to join the association and affiliate with Division G. In addition, spread
the word to other colleagues. There are many ASM members who have not placed
an affiliation with a division. Some of the individuals could be in hospital
clinical laboratories, etc. and could have an interest in mycoplasmas. They
need to part of Division G!
Back
Starting this year, every division will have their own homepage for the
distribution of information. I am seeking help in assembling this homepage
and suggestions for the content. I need digitized figures to add interest
to the page. There is a standardized format for information, but there is
also some flexibility that we can put to good advantage. I will be webmaster
(at least for the time being), unless someone else would like to take on
the challenge. Contact me at fcminion@iastate.edu if you would like to be
actively involved. I welcome the help.
The IOM is also developing a homepage which will be linked to the ASM
Division G homepage. Much of the work has been done for both pages, but
a few details remain. I expect both homepages to be up and running by the
end of January. They may be a little sparse to start with, but I expect
that you will come through with suggestions for content and digitized
artwork to use. For the ASM homepage, we will have the latest newsletter,
information about the upcoming general meeting as well as other meetings
of interest to mycoplasmologists, information regarding changes at ASM that
will affect Division G, etc. There will be links to the IOM homepage and
other related pages such as the TIGR database for M. genitalium,
etc. The IOM page will have the Constitution, present and past officers,
the awards rules, information about the next IOM Congress, etc. It is hoped
that sometime next year we will have a database of strains, etc. available
around the world. This could be quite useful if we can include information
about clones, probes, PCR primers, etc. Mary Brown, Jerry Davis and Maureen
Davidson (University of Florida) are working on this database. Please contact
me at fcminion@iastate.edu with suggestions and/or contributions. As for
the ASM Division G homepage, I will be the IOM homepage webmaster unless
someone else would like the responsibility.
Back
The 11th International Congress was held July 14-19, 1996, in Orlando,
Florida. The Program Committee was co-chaired by Jerry Davis and Maureen
Davidson, and the local organizing committee, by Mary Brown, Jerry Davis,
and Maureen Davidson. Everybody involved is to be commended for a very successful
Congress in a beautiful venue. Social activities included a trip to Sea
World and a "wild" closing dinner at "Buffalo Bill's."
This year's winners of the Emmy Klieneberger-Nobel and Derrick Edward Awards
were Shlomo Rottem and Alaine Blanchard, respectively. Congratulations to
both!
The new officers for 1996-1998 are Chair, Dennis Pollack (USA); Chair-Elect,
Gunna Christiansen (Denmark); Past-Chair, David Taylor-Robinson (UK); Secretary-General,
Itzhak Kahane (Israel); Treasurer, Ricardo Rosenbusch (USA); and Membership
Secretary, John Davis (USA). The important addresses for information on
membership and contributions to the newsletters are, respectively:
As of July 1996, IOM had 435 paid members. All Division G members are
certainly invited and encouraged to join. Perks include the Newsletter,
in which early announcements of IOM Congresses, reports of other international
mycoplasmology conferences, information about new mycoplasmology reference
books, and news about fellow members can be found, the IOM Directory, containing
names and addresses of all the other members, and significant discounts
on Congress registration fees. Definitely worth the price ($50 for two years
for regular members, $10 for students). The person to contact is John Davis
at the above address.
The 12th Congress (1998) will be in Sydney, Australia, and the 13th (2000),
in Japan. Start making plans!
Leigh R. Washburn, 1994-1996 IOM Secretary-General
Don't hesitate to call (or write) and let me know what you think about
the ASM, Division G, etc. It gets lonely in Iowa in the winter. Expect the
next Newsletter in March with the finalized General Meeting program. Thanks
for your interest.
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Chris Minion
Chair, Division G
This page was authored and designed by Division G which is fully responsible for its contents. For more information, please contact: F. Chris Minion
Copyright © 1997 American Society for Microbiology