EDITORIAL COMMENTS
to
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
In this issue of MEHD you will find the message from our new SOMED president, Professor Gianfranco Donelli. It is a pleasure to state that he has done a marvellous job, already. When I met him on our XXX SOMED Congress in Rome in September 2007, he presented a lot of plans on how to re-vitalize SOMED and thereby also MEHD. As you can all read for yourselves, he is well on his way to succeed.
He has managed to awake “dormant” members and to recruit new ones. Professor Gianfranco Donelli is also to be congratulated for his new Board. For the years to come, he will have a very experienced crew coming from many parts of the world with an outstanding experience on central parts of microbial ecology in health and disease. Our President-elect has been a member of SOMED for many years, and so has our Secretary and Treasurer. Eugenia, we are still many who remember the excellent SOMED Congress that you arranged in Joannina around 2 decades ago. It is nice, indeed, that Boris Shenderov, who is going to arrange the XXXII SOMED Congress in a palace in St.Petersburg, Russia in October 2009, also is a member of the SOMED Board.
I am sure that all members of SOMED will do their very best for our new president and his crew and I am also quite sure that you all join me in expressing our very best congratulations!
Tore Midtvedt
Editor-in-Chief
SOMED NEWSLETTER Society for Microbial Ecology and Disease WINTER 2007 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Dear members, colleagues and friends, It is a pleasure for me to announce that the 2008 campaign to recover past members as well as to recruit new members is going on quite well.
In this regard, I would like to remind you that until few years ago, 210 regular members, 14 student members and 10 corporate members belonged to our Society. At present, members that have applied for their membership for the year 2008, have only reached a total number of 89. Thus, I would like to invite all past members to renew their membership especially on the light of the benefits the Society is currently offering including reduced annual meeting registration fee, quarterly electronic Newsletter and free annual subscription to its Official Journal Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease (MEHD).
The way to reinforce our Society is hard but I'm positive towards the future of SOMED and MEHD because of many reasons.
Firstly, we recently recovered to the active life of our Society a number of “dormant” members and recruited, as members and/or Councillors candidates for the new Board, several outstanding scientists including John Bartlett, Diane Citron, Andrew Onderdonk and Michael Wilson.
On the other hand, the presence among the new members of Daniela Cattivelli (Advanced Analytical Technologies, Italy), Francesco Marotta (Gaia Foundation, Italy), Eveliina Myllyluoma (Valio, Finland), Arthur Ouwehand (Danisco, Finland), Maria Saarela (VTT, Finland) and Peter Silley (MB Consult, UK) demonstrates that important Companies and Foundations are interested in our Society.
To these and other Companies/Foundations, I'm proposing not only to apply to our Society as Corporate members but also to support our Official Journal “Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease (MEHD)”.
This fund-raising campaign, started in mid December, asks Companies/ Foundations to support the Journal as Platinum (10,000 EUR), Gold (5,000 EUR) or Silver (3,000 EUR) sponsors with a number of benefits including free Journal subscription and a number of advertising pages according to the level of sponsorship.
I'm convinced that an active collaboration of Companies with SOMED will be not only useful for common interests in microbial ecology and disease but also to increase the visibility of strategies, products and services offered by Companies themselves.
Regarding MEHD, I would also remember that the Journal is indexed in Current Contents/Life Science, reach a large number of scientific institutions all over the world and is now available online.
I would take the occasion to invite all of you to submit your papers to our Past-President and Editor-in-Chief, Professor Tore Midtvedt (e-mail: [email protected]).
As our next XXXI SOMED Congress is concerned, I invite you to plan an active participation by submitting your abstracts no later than May 10th to Elisabeth Norin (e-mail: [email protected]).
As you know, this year the Congress will be held in Djurönäset, May 28–30, 2008 jointly with the XVI International Symposium on Gnotobiology.
Djurönäset is just 45 km from Stockholm and 82 km from Arlanda. In Stockholm there are scheduled buses from Slussen: routes 433 and 434. Travel time is approximately 50 minutes and the stop is “Djurönäset”.
For bus timetable ask Elisabeth Norin by fax (+ 46 8 330744) or phone (+ 46 8 52486726).
The Preliminary Programme and General Information can be found on our SOMED webpage (www.somed.nu) as well at www.djuronaset.com.
Finally, I would like to give you the figures of the SOMED Ballot just closed on February 20th for the confirmation of myself as SOMED President and the nomination of the President-elect, of 3 Councillors 2008-2010 and 3 Councillors 2008-2012.
Out of the current 89, regularly paying SOMED members, 48 have expressed their preferences towards the candidates and the number of votes for each candidate results as follows: President 2008–2010: Gianfranco Donelli 46 President-elect 2008-2010: Marika Mikelsaar 40 Councillors 2008-2010: Elisa Bertazzoni Minelli 22 Diane Citron 26 Lansing Hoskins 18 Elisabeth Norin 21 Arthur C. Ouwehand 29 Michael Wilson 23 Councilors 2008–2012: Francesca Clementi 30 Andrew B. Onderdonk 38 Maria Saarela 21 Abigail Salyers 21 Boris Shenderov 26 Thus, on the basis of these results, from March 1st 2008 the Officers of the SOMED Executive Board will be the followings: President 2008–2010 Gianfranco Donelli President-elect 2008–2010 Marika Mikelsaar Secretary Shigeru Kamiya Treasurer Eugenia Bezirtzoglou Councillors 2008–2010 Diane Citron Arthur C. Ouwehand Michael Wilson Councilors 2008–2012 Francesca Clementi Andrew B. Onderdonk Boris Shenderov Firstly, I would like to warmly thank all members who gave me their vote thus confirming their appreciation towards my efforts to relaunch the Society.
I would also express the Society's gratitude to all members that accepted to be candidate as Officers and welcome in the Board the President-elect Marika Mikelsaar and the new Councillors Diane Citron, Francesca Clementi, Andy Onderdonk, Arthur Ouwehand, Boris Shenderov and Michael Wilson.
I'm sure that our collaboration in the SOMED Board will be successful.
I hope to see you all in Djurönäset. Gianfranco Donelli SOMED President LETTERS TO THE SOMED PRESIDENT February 1, 2008, Moscow – St. Petersburg Prof. Gianfranco Donelli SOMED President Prof. Lucio Capurso 4th Probiotics, Prebiotics & New Food International Conference President Prof. Gregor Reid ISAPP President Prof. Tore Midtvedt Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease Editor-in Chief Dear colleagues,
We consider it an honour to inform you that Russian side confirms our agreement in undertaking to organize International Open Forum “Microbial Ecology and Functional Foods: Scientific, Clinical and Biotechnology Aspects” (St. Petersburg, Beloselskih Palace, Russia, October, 2009)
A number of participants: 300–350 persons
Languages: English and Russian
Executive Committee (Russia): E. Tkachenko (Forum Chairman), B. Shenderov (Chairman of Scientific Committee), V. Aleshkin, V. Dobritsa, V. Kharitonov, A. Panin (Co-Chairmen)
Secretary: S. Sitkin
International Advisory Panel: L. Capurso, G. Donelli, T. Midtvedt, G. Reid
We offer Forum which will include 3 separate meetings:
XXXII SOMED Congress
Chairman of Russian Executive Committee: E. Tkachenko / B. Shenderov
Chairman of International Advisory Panel: G. Donelli
International Conference “Probiotics, Prebiotics and Functional Foods”
Chairman of Russian Executive Committee: V. Aleshkin / V. Dobritsa / V. Kharitonov
Chairman of International Advisory Panel: L. Capurso / G. Reid
International Conference “Probiotics and Prebiotics in Rational Feeding, Prophylaxis and Treatment of animal Diseases”
Chairman of Russian Executive Committee: A. Panin
The joint plenary session (first day) is intended to address “Microbial Ecology and the Most Serious Threats Facing our World Today: AIDS, Avian Influenza Virus Infection, Radiation and other Disasters, Metabolic Syndrome, Stress, Drug Disease, Cancer, Gastroenterological Diseases”. Invited speakers (report: 30 min.)
Official Organizers: SOMED, ISAPP, Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia
We are waiting for your consent in written form for beginning of active work of Russian Executive Committee.
All financial and other problems will be solved as the necessity arises.
On behalf of Russian Executive Committee:
Table
This interesting proposal will be submitted for evaluation and final decision to the new SOMED Executive Board as well as discussed in the next SOMED General Assembly in Djurönäset.