Message from Incoming President

Message from Outgoing President

2001 Branch Meeting

Updates

Message from Incoming President

As incoming president of the Florida ASM I would like to introduce myself to you. My background in microbiology started with my Ph.D. research at the University of Kent in England where I worked on the peptide transport system of the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. This led directly to a post-doctoral position at SmithKline Beckman in Philadelphia where I worked in the natural products drug discovery group and was able to extend my thesis research into the broader realm of antifungal drug discovery. After two years in Philadelphia I moved to Florida to join the recently-formed drug discovery group at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution located in Fort Pierce. I was brought here to establish antimicrobial screening but, being a microbiologist, my interests were soon drawn into the world of marine microbiology and the subsequent establishment of a culture collection. Now, after 15 years, I am the Microbiology Group Leader in the Division of Biomedical Marine Research. The culture collection has grown to over 13,000 isolates that are used in our drug discovery program and we have major activities in microbial ecology and molecular biology that have evolved from our attempts to isolate microbes from deep-water marine sponges.

As president of the Florida ASM I hope to be able to continue the excellent work of my predecessors in increasing attendance at our annual meeting and encouraging the participation of the diverse groups of microbiologists working in Florida. The meeting is invaluable in allowing our students to present their latest research results and also presents a forum for interaction between microbiologists from academia, private research labs and industry. I hope to see many of you in Fort Pierce this year.

Peter McCarthy
 

Message from Outgoing President

It has been a pleasure to serve as Branch President for the past 1-1/2 years.  At this time I offer my thanks to the other officers of the Branch who have worked hard to see that we have a Newsletter and a successful annual meeting.  I am most especially indebted to Dale Griffin who has written our grant proposal to ASM each of the past two years to help us get funding for the meeting and for all of the other assistance he has provided.  I greatly look forward to our Florida ASM Branch meeting in February (see information below).  Once again we have a chance to gather to exchange information and see the progress of our graduate and undergraduate students in Microbiology.  We had a highly successful meeting in 2000 in Clearwater.  It was very well attended and the student presentations and plenary speakers were excellent.  I hope that we can build on that and continue to strengthen our branch.  Please share this newsletter and information about our meeting with your colleagues.  I hope that you will encourage other faculty, staff and students to participate in the annual meeting.  The meeting in No. Hutchinson Beach will have 3 featured lectures, student presentations and a beautiful beach setting.  The announcements below provide you with details.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Our Branch can only continue to be successful if the microbiologists throughout our state support it by participating in the meetings and by being active in the branch and ASM nationally.  Please make every effort to attend this year’s meeting and to support Peter McCarthy’s efforts as our President beginning in July.

Steven Specter
 

2001 Branch Meeting

Annual Meeting

The Florida Branch ASM will hold its annual meeting on February 23 and 24, 2001 at the Radisson Beach Resort, North Hutchinson Island, Ft. Pierce, Florida.  Our program will include 3 invited presentations and student posters and oral presentations.  Included below are the abstract form, registration form, preliminary program, hotel reservation information and directions to the hotel.  We hope that faculty, staff and students will participate in making this a strong branch meeting please share this information with your colleagues and students.

Call for Abstracts

Abstracts are invited for the Annual Meeting and an Abstract Form appears in the Newsletter.   Instructions for the abstract are included on the Abstract Form page.  Graduate students are encouraged to submit their work for an oral presentation and consideration for an award for merit.  Approximately twenty-one (21) oral presentations can be accommodated on Saturday.  All undergraduate abstracts and any graduate student, fellow or faculty abstracts in excess of 21 will be presented in poster format.  Graduate students who would prefer a poster presentation can indicate this on their abstract form.

Undergraduate Travel Awards

Travel costs and lodging are provided for undergraduates who would like to attend the meeting. Undergraduates who are interested should have a faculty member contact William Safranek. via e-mail (safranek@iu.net) prior to the meeting date.

Meeting Site

The meeting will be held at the Radisson Beach Resort, 2600 North A1A, North Hutchinson Island, Ft. Pierce, FL.  Room rate is $109 single or double.  There is a block of 25 rooms being held for the group.  Please call and make your reservations as soon as possible.  The block is held only through January 23, 2001.  To make reservations please call 1-561-465-5544 or  FAX 561-465-5540 (Monday-Friday 8 am-8 pm or Saturday and Sunday 8 am-5 pm.  Please mention that you are attending the Florida Branch ASM meeting and use the Block Code 10B/MICRO.

Directions: Provided via MapQuest and can be found at www.mapquest.com.  Please refer to this site if more detailed directions are needed.

From South Florida:  Take I-95 North to Florida Turnpike North.  Take Turnpike to Exit 152 (Ft. Pierce/Okeechobee exit) which is state road (SR) 70 towards Ft. Pierce/Vero Beach (this is a right turn to SR 70 east.  Take for 4.7 miles to US 1 north (left turn).  Take US 1 north for 2.6 miles and turn slightly right to Florida A1A. (While the Mapquest directions do not mention Shore Winds Drive North Causeway appears from the map that this road connects US 1 and A1A, so note the map carefully.)

From West Central Florida:  Take SR 60 to Florida Turnpike South.  Take Turnpike to Exit 152 (Ft. Pierce/Okeechobee exit) which is state road (SR) 70 towards Ft. Pierce/Vero Beach (this is a right turn to SR 70 east.  Take for 4.7 miles to US 1 north (left turn).  Take US 1 north for 2.6 miles and turn slightly right to Florida A1A.  (While the Mapquest directions do not mention Shore Winds Drive North Causeway appears from the map that this road connects US 1 and A1A, so note the map carefully.)

From North Florida: Go onto BEE LINE EXWY headed east.   Take the I-95 S exit towards MIAMI.  Merge onto I-95 S.  Take the SR-68 E/ORANGE AVE exit, exit number 66A.
Merge onto ORANGE AVE. (4.2 miles)   Turn LEFT onto US-1 N. (1.1 miles)
Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto FL-A1A (3.0 miles)

Itinerary

Friday, February 25

1:00 pm Welcome 

1:05 Philip D. Lister, Ph.D.
Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE
"Emerging Problems of Anti-Microbial Resistance: How Do We Prevent the "Post-antibiotic Era’"
ASM Foundation for Microbiology Lecture

2:05 Philip B. Carter, Ph.D.
North Carolina State University, College of Veterinary Medicine, Raleigh, NC
"Biological Warfare and Urban Terrorism: "Gulf War Illness and the Potential for Biological Terrorism"
ASM Foundation for Microbiology Lecture

3:05 Break

3:45 Kenneth Ugen, Ph.D.
 University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa, FL
 "When Can We Expect to Have an HIV Vaccine?"

4:45  Discussion

6:00  Mixer

Saturday, February 24

8:30 am ? 12:00 Noon (Times may be adjusted depending on Number of Abstracts)

Student Oral Presentations & Posters 

12:00 ? 1:00 Lunch (on own)

1:00 ? 1:45 pm Business Meeting

1:45 ? 5:00 pm Student Oral Presentations (conclusion approximate based on number of 
                         presentations

Decision on Student Awards and Presentation of Prizes will follow presentations as soon as possible

Adjourn
 

Updates

17th Annual Clinical Virology Symposium

     The Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of South Florida College of Medicine in association with the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology (PASCV) will host the 17th Annual Clinical Virology Symposium April 29 - May 2, 2001 at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort, Clearwater Beach, FL.  Details about the program and registration information is available on-line at the web site of the PASCV  www.virology.org  A limited number of Travel Awards are available from the PASCV for students, fellows and technologists. 

The PASCV will also host a Molecular Virology Workshop at the same site on April 27 and 28, 2001.
 

Information on a variety of national and international meeting/workshops can be found in the ASM web site -http://www.asmusa.org/mtgsrc/mtgs.htm

MICROCOMM is published as an annual newsletter of the Florida Branch ASM. Besides meeting announcements, we will endeavor to bring you local branch news and items of interest. We welcome contributions to the newsletter from our members. Anything that you feel would be of interest to other microbiologists in Florida is welcome.

Please Send your input to: Dale Griffin, Center for Coastal Geology, U. S. Geological Survey, 600 Fourth Street South, St Petersburg, FL 33701 or e-mail to dgriffin@usgs.gov