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Latest News

Letter from the President, 2004

Antonello Pietrangelo, MD, PhD

Dear Members,

A short note to report on recent activities of IBIS. Our society is growing fast and gathering more and more interest not only from individual scientists and physicians, but also from other societies, health organizations and biomedical companies. The number of IBIS members is steadily increasing, and is now 358. This is an extremely important achievement, but we should not stop there… It is important that each one of us become an IBIS promoter and bring in our society all colleagues and investigators interested in various aspects of iron metabolism and diseases.

BIOIRON 2005: The next IBIS meeting, BIOIRON 2005, will be held in Prague, May 22 – 27. Headquarter will be the Prague Hilton Hotel. You should be now receiving the announcement from Prem Ponka, chairman of the conference. As promised, there will be a special reduced fee for IBIS members attending the 2005 Prague meeting. Dr. Ponka has been working very hard to set up a very attractive program in a fascinating historical setting in the heart of Europe. Please visit the meeting website at www.bioiron2005.cz for more information. I’m sure we will all enjoy an unforgettable meeting. I’m particularly pleased to also announce that 20 IBIS bursaries covering full accommodation and registration will be granted to selected IBIS trainee members presenting an abstract at the meeting. In addition, a Presidential IBIS travel award will be granted to the best oral presentation… and more to be announced… I remind you that in order to take advantage of all these benefits, good standing with IBIS membership fees will be required for both regular and trainee members. So, check your membership status and if for any reasons you forgot to renew your membership, do it now.

In Prague, election of IBIS board members will also take place. A new president-elect and three new directors will be voted. Members are entitled to nominate themselves or other IBIS members to the different positions available. You can send your nomination by email to info@bioiron.org. A ballot will be prepared and sent to all members prior to the Prague meeting. As we did in 2003, election will take place at the meeting but email votes will also be accepted from non-attending members (in case there will be any...). You will have further information from me on this issue in due time.

The IBIS web page is fully established and maintained through Weiser under the supervision of Greg Anderson. It has been recently improved and we are very proud that the IBIS web site gets thousands of hits per month. It should represent a bonus for members as it has an area restricted to IBIS members. We should all take advantage of this easily accessible tool that facilitates the exchange of news and the interaction between members. As you know, we have implemented the Email Forum Discussion, an important place to exchange ideas, information and, we hope, collaborations among members. IBISNET is fully in place and right now an important discussion on iron gene nomenclature is taking place.

As to the economical situation of IBIS, the closing balance of the Washington BIOIRON 2003 meeting has been extremely positive and because of this and the membership fee input, the present IBIS financial status is definitely satisfactory. This allows us to look very optimistically to the future. You will be updated in Prague by our treasurer, Bob Hider, on IBIS budgets and finances. Once more, we must be grateful to the excellent work done by Tracey Rouault and Victor Gordeuk, chairpersons of the Washington 2003 meeting. We foresee a great scientific success for the 2005 Prague meeting under the chairship of Prem Ponka, and this will also help consolidate our finances and secure our future. Special attention is now being paid to relationships with commercial sponsors and biomedical industries to commit them to our meetings and society’s activities without renouncing our nature and mission. Also, private entities are clearly showing their interest in IBIS and, in this respect, I will hopefully update you very soon with important developments for our society.

At the end, as always, let me remind you that all members should feel free to contact me or any other member of the Board directly or through the IBIS web site. I look forward to your active participation in IBIS activities.

See you all in Prague!

Antonello Pietrangelo, IBIS President

posted: January 1, 2004