AffiliAtes letter

december 2017

The best of 2017: Looking back at a fantastic year From welcoming a record number of attendees from around the world to FEMS 2017 in Valencia to celebrating the 40th anniversary of FEMS Microbiology Letters to introducing new faces to the FEMS family, 2017 has been a spectacularly exciting year. Its marked a year of change as we have continued to build on the solid foundations of our activities - our five journals, biennial Congress and extensive grants and awards programme - to maximize the impact of microbiology across Europe and beyond.

In this final newletter of the year, we look back at the best of 2017 and thank every single one of you for getting involved in putting microbiology on the map.

FEMS in numbers

1 new FEMS Member Society Lithuanian Microbiological Society

1 joint Virtual Special Issue with Member Societies

2 Letters Incubator Projects

2 community surveys

3 new FEMS Directors

4 FEMS Awards for excellence in science FEMS Mkel-Cassell Travel Award: Kana Morinaga

FEMS-Lwoff Award: Prof Jeff Errington, UK

FEMS-ESCMID Award: Dr Francesca Bottacini, UK

FEMS Microbiology Letters MiniReview Award: Ulrich Sonnenborn, Germany

10 FEMS Journals Virtual Special Issues

11 FEMS Journals Thematic Issues

31 FEMS-sponsored meetings

40 years of FEMS Microbiology Letters

85 countries represented at FEMS 2017

2700+ attendees at FEMS 2017 a record number

1 million+ Twitter impressions from #FEMS2017

2.5 million article downloads across all FEMS journals

Also in this issuePuBliCAtions / GRAnts CoRneR / oPPoRtunities / DeADlines

the officiAl newsletter for fems AffiliAtes

Delftechpark 37A, 2628 XJ Delft, The NetherlandsT: +31 15 302 0050 | E: fems@fems-microbiology.org

Seasons GreetingsWarmest wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a very happy New Year from all of us here at FEMS!

We look forward to another fantastic year in 2018.

https://academic.oup.com/femsyr/pages/replication_recombination_and_repair

december 2017

Continued from page 1

Welcoming new faces to the FEMS family

We are delighted to welcome the following new Directors to the FEMS Board for the period 2018-2020:

Dr Vaso Taleski (Macedonia) Director of Events & Internationalisation

Dr Andriy Sibirny (Ukraine) Director of Education & Public Engagement

Dr Patrik Bavoil (USA) Director of Research & Publications

We very much look forward to working with them in advancing excellence in science.

Celebrating 40 years of community This year marked a very special birthday: FEMS Microbiology Letters 40th! To celebrate Letters commitment to investing and supporting the microbiology community for 40 years, we launched the following:

an interactive timeline of the key milestones in Letters rich 40 year history

a commemorative Virtual Special Issue with commentaries from some of the most highly cited authors from Letters

the Letters Incubator - a new initiative to help the microbiology community collaborate on innovative new publishing ideas

sharing your microbiology milestones with #LETTERS40

Putting microbiology on the map To highlight the fundamental role of microbiology in tackling some of the worlds most pressing challenges, we have been working closely with key experts this year to put microbiology firmly on the map:

UN World Food Day Dr Irene Hoffmann from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) discusses the role of microbiology in sustainable food production

One Health Day Prof Richard Kock from the Royal Veterinary College shares his views on the future of global health

World Antibiotic Awareness Week Dr Marc Sprenger from the World Health Organization (WHO) discusses what we can do to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the European Academy of Microbiology (EAM) share their expert views on the future of AMR

European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD) The EAAD team discuss why AMR matters and invite us to attend their EU-level launch event in Brussels to learn how AMR is being tackled across Europe

UN World Toilet Day The role of microbiology in wastewater reuse is discussed by an invited expert panel from WaterAid, UN-Water, WHO, UNESCO IHE, TU Delft and the World Toilet Organization

Uniting microbiologists all over the world at FEMS 2017With just 563 days until the next FEMS Congress in Glasgow on 7-11 July 2019, its time to reflect on what a fantastic meeting FEMS 2017 was earlier this year in Valencia.

Uniting more than 2700 microbiologists from 85 countries at 75 science sessions across 4 days, it was an inspiring global gathering showcasing the best of microbiology. Thank you for being a part of it!

Campaigning for excellence in scienceWe launched a new campaigns section to challenge important issues in microbiology and advocate an open and honest discussion from the microbiology community. Find out how you can get involved and discover why these issues matter.

Read an obituary for Cletus Kurtzman >

Prof Joanna Verran

FEMS Member-at-large (Education)

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Prof Jim Prosser

FEMS Publications Manager

University of Aberdeen, UK

Dr Frdrique Belliard

FEMS Journal Development Editor

Read an interview with Cletus Kurtzman >More on Letters 40th > Read more >

Peer review

One Health

Fighting AMR

More about our campaigns >

Prof Per-Eric Lindgren

FEMS Chair of Meetings Board

Linkping University, Sweden

We hosted education sessions in the two most recent Congresses, which were extremely successful... I really feel that Education and Public Engagement have become core functions within FEMS and I am delighted to have played some part in the beginning of this.

My role has changed over the six years that Ive been Publications Manager; it has gone from an executive role, with hands-on activities, to become more strategic. One of the things that Ive had to address is the changing publications landscape and the impact of that change on publications.

My journey with FEMS has been exciting, rich, always full of surprises and definitely not boring... FEMS is a diverse organisation that aims to have a durable impact on microbiology.

http://www.femsjournals.com/content/virtual-special-issue-conference-physiology-yeasts-and-filamentous-fungi-pyff6http://bit.ly/2mwuqN6http://www.femsjournals.com/content/virtual-special-issue-conference-physiology-yeasts-and-filamentous-fungi-pyff6http://bit.ly/2mwuqN6http://bit.ly/2mwuqN6http://www.femsjournals.com/content/virtual-special-issue-conference-physiology-yeasts-and-filamentous-fungi-pyff6http://www.femsjournals.com/content/virtual-special-issue-conference-physiology-yeasts-and-filamentous-fungi-pyff6

4 december 2017

Pathogens and DiseaseMiniReview

Subversion of Nutritional Immunity by the Pathogenic Neisseriae

This review will discuss the arsenal of weaponry that bacteria use to defend against bacterial pathogens, such as through the use of metal sequestering proteins. The focus will be on the relatively uncommon metal piracy approaches utilized by the pathogenic Neisseria.

Authors: Cornelissen

PUBLICATIONSFEMS Microbiology ReviewsReview

Lignin degradation: microorganisms, enzymes involved, genomes analysis and evolution

A number of fungal and bacterial organisms have developed both competitive and mutualistic strategies based on the enzymatic machinery and low molecular compounds, which gives these organisms not only an advantage in wood degradation processes, but potentially giving them an advantage in their ecological niches.

Authors: Janusz et al. FEMS Microbiology EcologyResearch Article

Triple-element compound-specific stable isotope analysis of 1,2-dichloroethane for characterization of the underlying dehalogenation reaction in two Dehalococcoides mccartyi strains

Triple-element compound-specific stable isotope analysis provides evidence that 1,2-dichloroethane dehalogenation involves a dihaloelimination mechanism with concerted chlorine removal.

Authors: Franke et al.

FEMS Yeast ResearchResearch Article

CRIMEtoYHU: a new web tool to develop yeast-based functional assays for characterizing cancer-associated missense variants

The authors created a new web application to set up yeast-based functional assay to characterize cancer-associated missense variants.

Authors: Mercatanti et al.

FEMS Microbiology LettersCommentary

Patent protection for microbial technologies

Microbial technologies often serve as the basis of fundamental research tools in molecular biology, presenting ethical, legal and social issues concerning their patenting. This commentary presents several case studies of the issues across three major microbiological tools: CRISPR, viral vectors and antimicrobial resistance drugs.

Authors: Sherkow Thematic IssuesExplore the new special issues and Thematic Issues across all our journals this month:

FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Microbiome and Microbial Communities Virtual Special Issue

Editor: Philippe Sansonetti

FEMS Microbiology Letters

Microbial carbon dioxide fixation Thematic Issue

Editors: Paola Branduardi and Michael Sauer

FEMS Yeast Research

Yeast Cell Factories Thematic Issue

Editors: Irina Borodina and Zongbao Kent Zhao

FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Subsurface Microbiology Virtual Special Issue associated with the International Society for Subsurface Microbiology (ISSM) mee