SEB Bulletin March 2008
Report from President and Council
This has been a year of significant change in the way the Society is governed. At the AGM in Glasgow proposals were accepted to streamline the committee structure of the Society and reform the Council. The former Management Committee has been abolished and its functions transferred either to other committees or the Southampton Office thereby removing one tier of bureaucracy. We have created a small Meetings Committee chaired by the Vice-President Pat Hesslop-Harrison which is tasked with running and developing the Society's scientific meetings. The Council itself has taken on a more strategic role and is now half its previous size. At the time of writing the new look Council has had three meetings and the consensus of members is that the new arrangements are working very well. One innovation is a rolling programme of topics for in depth consideration by Council based on discussion papers prepared by small groups of people from Council and/or the general membership. For example, at the June meeting of Council will consider what I think is an excellent paper on “Future directions for the Journal of Experimental Botany” prepared by Prof Richard Napier, University of Warwick after consultations with the Editor Prof Jerry Roberts, Journal staff and the Society's Officers. Also for the first time we have recruited some members that are independent of the SEB to bring in outside expertise and help oversee our activities. As reported in my regular piece “from the President's Desk” Dr Alun Anderson (former Editor of New Scientist) and Dr Geoff Randall (former Head of Global Environmental Science and Technology, AstraZeneca) will join the Council from March bringing a wealth of relevant experience to the Society. We are currently in the process of electing another Council member from the general membership together with a Deputy Publications Officer who will have special responsibility for the Journal of Experimental Botany. This is the Society's first foray into direct elections and Council has been extremely encouraged by the number and quality of the people who put themselves forward for election. The merits of each candidate were carefully considered by Council and after some discussion a short-list for each post was drawn from those whose experience best complemented the current officers. We hope that many of the excellent candidates who were not selected on this occasion will consider taking up other roles within the Society in the future. The Council has also decided to move away from ad hoc decisions about spending and consider both the income and expenditure of the Society at the March Council Meeting. I am confident that over time we will see measurable benefits from these governance reforms and I will continue to keep the membership informed of developments via my regular articles in the Bulletin.
The Annual Main Meeting was held in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow between 30th March and 4th April 2007 and we were blessed with unseasonably mild and sunny weather for the Scottish West Coast. The meeting attracted 669 delegates with 427 oral contributions and 171 poster presentations. The meeting consisted of 28 scientific sessions covering topics from all branches of experimental biology as well as sessions on educational and public affairs issues. In 2007, the President's Medallists were Matthew Dalby, Stefan Kepinski and Anthony Herrel. Prior to the conference dinner each gave a well received and entertaining account of their science and the people that had most influenced them during their career to-date. The Bidder lecture for 2007 was given by Alison Smith on plant carbohydrate storage (John Innes Centre) and the Woolhouse lecture by David Baulcombe (Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich) on the function of short RNAs in plants. Both plenary lecturers maintained the very high standards of the series and it was gratifying to see such a large and mixed audience of animal, cell and plant biologists in attendance. The SEB Symposium entitled 'Essential and Non-Essential Metal Metabolism in Aquatic Organisms' was held at King's College London between 3rd and 5th September 2007 and attracted 47 delegates.
The Society continues to improve its management systems providing ever more powerful levels of reporting and abilities to track membership. Members now have the facility to access pages specifically designed for them, update their details and pay their membership online as well as accessing meeting registration pages with reduced membership registration fees. During 2007 the Society invested in a new content management system for the web site and a significant amount of time and work has gone into the transfer, reorganisation and updating of content from the old website to the new. This has resulted in easier navigation and includes breadcrumb trails, news items, thumbnails and quick links to relevant pages within the site.
I will end by thanking all the SEB staff for their hard work and dedication to the Society throughout the year, particularly in the period leading up to and during the Main Annual Meeting. I am also grateful to the Honorary Officers and all those people who serve on the various committees of the Society for giving so generously of their time and enthusiasm.
Ian A. Johnston
Honorary President
Financial Report from the Treasurer
Last year I issued a note of caution, that whilst our financial position is strong and that we have had a few good years, the future was far from certain. So it remains, with (at the time of writing) the financial markets in turmoil. Our overall position at the end of the last financial year (August 2007) has strengthened but on the day to day budget we actually made a deficit this year. I am confident though that our position is sound and that with prudence it will remain so.
As ever there are the usual thanks due to numerous people. Ian Johnston (President), Pat Heslop-Harrison (Vice-President), Mathis Riehle, Keith Lindsey, Richard Handy and Christine Foyer (Section Secretaries), Sarah Blackford (Education & Public Affairs officer) and lastly Len Evans (Secretary and Investment Officer) who are valued colleagues. Special thanks go to Chris Trimmer I cannot over estimate the value of her and the other employees of the Society. Heather Budd is responsible for the day to day financial management of the Society and is the one who keeps me on my toes. Kate and Sue make up the team and their endless good humour and hard work often goes unnoticed, but not by me!!
So how did we do financially for the year ending 31st August 2007 and what are our prospects for the future? Our accountants, Tudor John, must be thanked for the friendly, efficient and believe me thorough preparation and audit of our accounts. The total assets of the Society are currently £1,643,000 (2006: £1,619,000) so a slight increase and a healthy position. Reviewing our “cash-flow” for the year as a whole there was a deficit of income over expenditure of £50,923 (a surplus of £50,529 in 2006).
Our major source of income in recent years has been from the Journal of Experimental Botany and The Plant Journal. Both of these have had another good year and are generating revenue for the Society averaging in the region of £200,000. Realised fixed asset investment income has decreased sharply from last year's £85,312. Subscriptions have increased slightly getting back towards what they were a few years ago at £38,662 (2006: £33,009).
It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons for our poorer trading position this year. Income and expenditure remain roughly the same as last year. There was a disappointing number of delegates at the Glasgow AMM. Given the fantastic venue and the excellent programme this is doubly disappointing. This resulted in a small deficit for the meeting over and above our normal subsidy. As mentioned last year the planning for meetings is complex and involves financial commitments often years prior to the actual date. We watch this closely but cannot predict who is going to attend a meeting. We have Marseille to look forward to this year.
Our investment in educational activities continues. These have been a real success and much praise to Sarah Blackford for all of her efforts. In addition to her educational activities Sarah is also responsible for the Bulletin which costs £20k.
The remainder of Society expenditure is concerned with running costs. We now have a firm lid on this expenditure and almost every category came in on budget. In addition to this there are salaries (£154K) and travel expenses (£37K). Salaries are virtually unchanged. By law now we have to break down our salary costs into categories that relate to our Society activities. This makes it much easier to see how much a particular activity (eg the AMM) costs us in terms of staff salaries. Travel expenses increased but this is no surprise. Train and air fares have risen way above inflation. Subscriptions (to the Bioscience Federation etc), Bank Charges and Property expenses have all risen.
Last year I warned about the future. It is still very uncertain and may yet get worse, so we must continue to be prudent. I also said that the financial viability of the Society runs on a knife edge, so it has proven. Our operational profit for last year came almost exclusively from our fixed asset investment interest. That has disappeared this year. Most of our income is derived from journal investments. The overall projected income from these sources is healthy but in decline. As a consequence cost cutting exercises in Journal production and management have been introduced. The full impact of open-access journals on our finances may be less then feared, but the increasing use of consortia deals for on-line access results in fewer subscriptions. Uncertain times indeed.
Martin Watson
Hon. Treasurer
Publication Report
Meet the committee:- Following on from the changes agreed at the last AGM there is now a Publications Committee. Following the election held over Christmas the Deputy Publications Officer is Martin Parry. It was good to see so many applicants for the post and I hope those who did not make it this time round will volunteer for roles on section and support publications via that route. The representatives from the sections are Mathis Riehle, Richard Handy and Phillip White. Martin and I are dividing up some of the tasks and, as a start, he will be the society officer responsible for JXB (Journal of Experimental Botany). The committee has already many ways of expanding our publications both journals and all types of books. Suzanne Brockhouse has been busy doing market research so that we can refine our ideas.
Our books have seen a steady fall in the number of copies sold and Taylor and Francis have terminated the contract to publish them. This has created the opportunity for us to use the modern print-on-demand mechanisms and we are currently looking at new ways to market the books. As part of Suzanne's market research she has been identifying how much people want to pay for the traditional paper copy and various electronic options. At the time of writing we are still gathering information but the intention is to move forward as quickly as possible to maintain a steady flow of SEB books.
The first volume of Advances in Experimental Biology made it onto the shelves this year and there will now be a steady stream of these. It is too early to say how well it is selling.
Both TPJ (The Plant Journal) and JXB (Journal of Experimental Botany) have returned a substantial sum to the Society this year. Profits have fallen slightly and this is likely to be a continuing trend over the next few years. The intention of the publications committee is to increase our avenues for publishing and thus plug the shortfall in journal income. All three plant journals have continued to attract an increasing number manuscripts. For JXB Jerry Roberts has successfully, with the aid of his editorial board and editorial office, reduced the time from submission to first decision. Many authors will now get a response within 30-40 days which brings us in line with our competitors. The journal launched a new open access initiative during the year. Now if you belong to a subscribing institution you can publish open access for no additional charge. If you don't subscribe you have to pay to get open access.
Where open access is going is still not clear. More institutions are setting up funds to pay but how publishers are going to recoup the costs is far from clear. As a society dependent on the income from journals to sustain our charitable activities we must continue to be cautious. There is not an overwhelming clamour from the customer for the service. Since offering the facility TPJ has only had a few takers and since the latest initiative by JXB it has not been swamped. Personally I think the reputation of the journal and its audience are still the most important things.
PBJ (Plant Biotechnology Journal) continues to progress well. It has settled into a niche and its subscription base is growing steadily. It still costs the society money, but a lot less than originally projected.
The one way we can help both the Society and the journals, including Advances, is by suggesting through your committees or directly to the Publications Committee ideas for up coming topics. If you want to hold a meeting then funds can be found to help and the journal will benefit from topical high quality science. It really is a win win situation.
I would like to finish with a long list of thanks. I thank Kate and Suzanne for there support and willingness, always with a smile, to grapple with the minutiae of publishing. I thank Jerry Roberts, Harry Klee, Keith Edwards, Rod Wilson and Mike Thorndyke, their editorial boards and editorial offices for their superb efforts in moving our journals forward so effectively through troubled waters. Lastly but not least I thank Chris and the rest of her team for all their efforts and their willingness to respond to all my requests.
Mike Burrell
Publications officer
Plant Section Report
2007 was another successful and eventful year for the Plant Section. Lee Sweetlove (Oxford) joins the Section Committee, and we thank the departing members Liam Dolan and Julie Scholes for their enthusiatic participation in recent years.
The 2007 Annual Main Meeting was held in Glasgow's Steel-Armadillo-on-the-Clyde (aka the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre). This type of venue is something of a novelty for the SEB, in that it is not a University campus but a dedicated conference centre, with attendant luxuries (or do I mean luxury attendants? I've never had so many people enthusiastically assisting me to my seat.) It was also the venue for the successful Photosynthesis Congress in July. In both cases the venue worked well, though some lessons were learned from the experience of the earlier AMM, such as the need for a single main social area for post-lecture 'networking'. We'll be going back in 2009. Student members should note that attendance at these meetings is now heavily subsidized by the Society, so persuade your supervisor to let you come along.
Before 2009, though, we'll be invading Marseille for this year's AMM in July. The Plant Section is organizing its own sessions on Ubiquitination; Green Products from Plants (Bioenergy and Pharmaceuticals); Developments in Plant Biology (especially useful as a session for PhD students to present a talk); plus a joint Plant-Cell Section session on Cell Biology of Plant Development and a fully cross-sectional session on Systems Biology. The EPA Section are planning a Bioenergy debate linked to the Green Products session. Prof. Steve Long from the University of Illinois will give the Woolhouse Lecture (fittingly, he was a former PhD student of Harold Woolhouse); and our President's Medallist is Dr. Alasdair Fernie of the Max-Planck-Institut at Golm, in recognition of his significant impact in the field of plant metabolomics research. In September, we are organizing the 2008 SEB Symposium, entitled Plant Development in a Changing Environment, running back-to-back with the GARNet meeting and to be held in Nottingham, September 8 - 10. Last but not least, the Plant Transport Group will hold a meeting over one and a half days in Manchester, 3rd-5th September 2008.
Start booking those flights to Marseille.
Keith Lindsey
Plant Section Secretary
Cell Section Report
The Committee for 2006/7 comprised Mathis Riehle (Hon Cell Section Secretary), Claire Grierson (Deputy Cell Section Secretary), Cliff Bray, Martin Watson, Jim Murray and Adam Benham. In addition, Susan Brooks is co-opted to the Committee to foster our association with the Royal Microscopical Society. Mathis Riehle and Jim Murray represented the Section on Council. The section has been actively represented on the newly formed publications, and meetings committee, and the membership group by the Section Secretary. Kris Vissenberg (Antwerp) and Steve Aves (Exeter) joined the committee in April 2007. We are grateful to David Evans whose term as Cell Section Secretary ended in April 2007 for his dedicated work, especially for helping to establish and run the Young Scientist Award Session.
The group: Cell Cycle, convened by John Bryant and Dennis Francis, Cell Signalling, convened by Martin McAinsh, Cytoskeleton convened by Patrick Hussey and Thermobiology, convened by Hans Poertner, were all active during the year. The annual main meeting at Glasgow included sessions on Programmed Cell Death, Beneficial Acclimation, Cardiovascular Control of Cellular Regulation, Cell and Organ Culture (joint with the Animal section) and a General Cell Biology session. The Cell Biology Section also sponsored the cross-sections session ‘Oxidants and Ageing’ at the meeting. The sections nominee Matthew Dalby (Glasgow) was a fitting President’s Medallist.
Preparations for Marseille 2008 are well underway, with a session on ‘What is new in Experimental Glycobiology’ jointly organised with the Royal Microscopical Society by Susan Brooks, Ben Appelmelk, and Pauline Rudd. The cross-section session ‘Systems Biology’ is coordinated by Martin McAinsh, Alex Webb and Claire Grierson, and the sessions on the Cytoskeleton and Plant Development by Patrick Hussey and Keith Lindsey, Circadian Clocks (Weiqun Lu and Hugh Piggins), and Thermobiology (L Tomanek and Hans Poertner) showing the activities of the groups. The satellite on the Nuclear Envelope and Golgi Apparatus organised by David Evans and Inge Meier has been tagged on to the meeting in Marseille. The next satellite meeting is on Macrophysiology (Thermobiology, H Poertner), and Kris Vissenberg is coordinating efforts to organise a meeting on the ‘cell wall’ in 2009. The next symposium on ‘Signalling and the Eukaryotic Cytoskeleton ‘ is being organised by Patrick Hussey jointly with Frans Ramaekers who indicated that there was a possibility of running this in association with the European Cytoskeleton Forum.
Planning for the following annual main meeting in Glasgow is well underway, Adam Benham is organising a session on Protein folding, Hans Poertner would like to organise a Thermobiology sessions on Antarctic adaptations or Molecular Biology of Thermal adaptations. A general cell and molecular biology session will be run by M Riehle. The Cell cycle group will organise a session on Cell Cycle in Development with the idea that this should be cross section including animal as well as plant. There is the possibility for a joint EPA/Cell Section session on microscopical techniques with the help of the Royal Microscopical Society. The cross sectional Darwin session is strongly supported by the section.
Mathis Riehle
Cell Section Secretary
Animal Section Report
The 2007/8 academic year has been a busy one for the animal section. The section was well represented with a range of scientific sessions at the annual meeting in 2007, and we are contributing a similar effort to the Marseille meeting in July 2008. The animal section held the SEB symposium this year on “Essential and Non-essential Metal Metabolism in Aquatic Organisms”, 3rd-5th September, 2007, Kings College, London.
This was organised by Nic Bury, Richard Handy, and Inna Sokolova. The meeting was attended by an international group of experts, and the symposium/workshop feel to the event really enabled the delegates to get into the details of the topic. In addition, the animal section was involved with the “2nd International Meeting on the Environmental Effects of Nanoparticles and Nanomaterials”, held in London at the Natural History Museum on the 24th/25th September 2007. This was attended by around 180 delegates, and was a great success for the SEB, and the other societies involved. See SEB Bulletin, January 2008 issue for a full report on both meetings. The next nano meeting will be held in Birmingham in September 2008.
The animal section is busy planning for the 2009 annual meeting at Glasgow, and a number of sessions have already been arranged. One strong theme at the meeting will be Darwin and evolution, and members are asked for suggestions on topics from the animal section. There have also been some changes in the make up of the groups in the animal section, and these changes reflect the evolving interests of our members and the state of the science. We took the decision at the autumn 2007 section meeting to fold the animal genomics special interest group and replace it with a feeding and nutrition group. The main reasons for this were not a lack of interest in genomics, but rather the reverse, that this theme had expanded into all the groups and is now a well used research technique. We felt that it had provided a platform to introduce these techniques to our members, but things have now moved on. The feeding and nutrition theme is provided by popular demand. In recent years, papers on animal behaviour, feeding behaviours, and aspects of gut physiology and bioenergetics have increased; but we have not provided a clear forum for these activities. We intend to launch this group at the Marseille meeting, where this is also a session on the gut. The endocrinology group has been less active the last couple of years at our annual meetings, although this is a topic where the SEB has been very active in satellite meetings. We are hoping to develop this group and re-launch their activities in 2008, and Nic Bury of Kings College has been instrumental in injecting lots of energy into this for 2008.
Finally, a reminder to the grass roots membership. This is your section of the society, and the convenors welcome suggestions for scientific meetings, or ideas about topics for workshops or symposia. These ideas can come from anyone in the membership, and I would particularly welcome those from the young scientists, PhD students, and early post docs.
Richard Handy
Animal Section Secretary
Osmoregulation Group Report
The Osmoregulation group had a busy annual meeting in 2007 supporting the Drinking, Salt and Osmoregulation - Tribute to Brian Eddy; In vitro Techniques for Invertebrate and Piscine Physiological and Ecotoxicological Studies and Integrative Approaches to Animal Behaviour and Physiology: Towards Ecological Relevance and Welfare sessions at Glasgow. The group also helped support the Animal Symposium last year on Essential and non-essential metal metabolism in Aquatic Organism, held in London. This year in Marseille also appears to be busy, and the group has interests in The Multifunctional Gut; Insect Hoemeostasis: Tribute to Simon Maddrell FRS, and the General Animal Biology Session. We made the decision to postpone the Progress in Ion Transporting Cell Research: Studies on Invertebrate and Vertebrate Models session due for Marseille. This was due to conflicts with other society meetings during the summer of 2008. This session is now scheduled for Glasgow 2009, and will be run in conjunction with the Endocrine group. The Endocrine group currently has no convenor and it is hoped that this session will instigate a renewed interest in the SEB's Animal Endocrine activities. On this latter note we also welcome any suggestions for session titles at future meetings.
Nic Bury and Kath Sloman
Convenor and Deputy Group Convenor
Education & Public Affairs Report
Last year was an exceptionally busy year for the newest Section of the SEB. Not only did the EPA run its usual programme of events during the year and at the SEB's annual main meeting, we also ran our first ever public outreach event in a Science Centre. Run alongside the Photosynthesis Congress this 2-day event was attended by hundreds of members of the local public who visited the Glasgow Science Centre and experienced some creative and inspiring hands-on activities involving plants and photosynthesis.
We are grateful to the Science Centre and the contributors from organisations in the region, and those from further afield such as the American Society of Plant Biologists, who helped make this such a successful and rewarding event. For more information see our report in the October 2007 bulletin: www.sebiology.org/publications/ Bulletin/October07/PS07.html
The SEB Meeting had also been held in Glasgow earlier in the year and the EPA programme provided delegates with education, training and careers activities to supplement their scientific programme, as well as offering the usual press service. This year our workshops concentrated on science communication skills including a hands-on opportunity for our delegates to write a press story based on their own research. We also ran two very popular careers workshops for our early-career scientists over lunch. We aim to offer something different in Marseille in July this year when we stage, amongst other activities, a debate to complement the Bioenergy session asking the question what and who decides the way forward for this new biotechnology. Our Women in Science dinner should prove popular on the Monday evening with our guest speaker, the Maitre de Chai de la maison Remy Martin!
Following on from three well-attended one-day career workshops which we ran in 2006 and 2007, the EPA is extending the event to a 2-day Satellite Meeting at Lancaster University in April which will include a programme aimed at raising awareness of the wider research environment, improving communication and building partnerships. Open to all postgraduates and postdoctorals we will report back on the event in the July issue of the bulletin. In addition, we are offering our expertise to other events as we run careers and public affairs sessions during other conferences, e.g. FESPB, EPSO and ASPB.
The SEB continues to contribute to the work of the umbrella organisation for UK Biology, Biosciences Federation, by responding to consultations and providing expertise for advisory task groups. The Education Committee is organising a Colloquium in the Autumn which will be advertised soon and we will continue to provide careers support for undergraduates, postgraduates and school students and to contribute to public initiatives such as the British Association Festival of Science.
Looking forward to 2009, the SEB will be returning its annual main meeting to Glasgow where the EPA Section intends to run another outreach event along the lines of the one we ran during the Photosynthesis meeting. In addition, we will work alongside the other sections to stage a cross-sectional session on Evolution to mark the Year of Darwin in the bicentenary of his birthday. This high-profile event will also form the basis for the publication of an educational book for teachers and lecturers. With four new committee members joining us in 2008 we are looking forward with positive enthusiasm to lots of new ideas as we go forward. We thank our outgoing committee members, Christine Foyer (chair), Richard Napier, Jane Taylor and Phil Newland and acknowledge their energy and support for the work of the EPA over the past years, which has secured its own evolution to an official Section of the SEB.
Christine Foyer and Sarah Blackford
Education & Public Affairs