ACS DIVISION OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY

Our hats are off to the Program Chairs of our Division (Marty Bollinger, Dewey McCafferty, and Tom Wandless) who have set up spectacular symposia highlighting both young and established investigators on a very broad range of topics.  I am particularly grateful to Dewey who managed a “first” last August due to inclement weather; a Skype presentation of the Pfizer Award Symposium by Sarah O’Connor!  Our spring and fall symposia continue to increase in attendance and attract scientists with broad interdisciplinary interests.  Perhaps we are breaking down the Division lines that have resided within the ACS for so long.I would like to thank Scott and Nigel for the smoothly run election in the Fall 2011.  We are delighted to announce the results.  Our new Program Chair, subsequent to Sheila David, will be Virginia Cornish. Replacing our fantastic treasurer Scott Silverman will be Chris Whitman.  Chris has big shoes to fill given the spectacular contributions from Scott over the past three years. The BIOL division is very grateful.  A new member, Anne-Frances Miller, has been added to the nominating committee and two Councilors and two Alternative Councilors have been elected: Nicole Sampson and Michelle Chang, and Jin Zhang and Stefan Lutz, respectively.  We are grateful for their service and hope to see them at the semi-annual business meetings.

I would also like to congratulate the 2012 Division Award winners: Lilly, Pfizer and Repligen awardees: Chris Chang from U.C. Berkeley, Jin Zhang from Johns Hopkins University, and Carol Fierke from the U. of Michigan. We look forward to their symposia in August. I would also like to congratulate the 2012 ACS Chemical Biology Lecturer, Carolyn Bertozzi and the 2012 Hammes Lecturer, Angela Gronenborn, the latter lecture being sponsored by the journal Biochemistry. In addition, I note that a special symposium has been organized for the ACS Fall meeting (Aug 20th) titled “50 Years of NIGMS-Supported Chemistry Enabling Biomedical Research“.  The lineup is excellent and includes a number of BIOL division members: Carolyn Bertozzi, Steve Buchwald, Linda Hsieh-Wilson, Anna Mapp, Tom O’Halloran, Smita Patel, Dan Romo, Melanie Sanford, Brian Shoichet, and Vern Schramm.

Please encourage all of your colleagues, especially undergraduate and graduate students, to join the ACS and ATTEND the meetings. We will certainly continue our programming efforts to ensure that ACS meetings become the “CAN’T MISS MEETINGS” of the year. Over the next few years, our division will make continued efforts to include young scientists in the symposia of the award winners and to support joint symposia among the inorganic, organic and physical divisions, and other divisions as well.

Best,

JoAnne Stubbe