Latest News

For International News and Activities, click here, or inquire by e-mail to ASM at international@asmusa.org.

If you have things/topics/ideas you think the membership would be interested in, please e-mail your current chairman.


May 18, 2001
Recipients of the 2001 ASM Student Travel Grant for Division U.

  • Ernesto J. Munoz-Elias
    The Rockefeller University

    • M. tuberculosis dependence on Glyoxylate Shunt Enzymes In Vivo and its
      Relationship to Host Immune Mechanisms

  • J. Reid Schwebach
    Albert Einstein College of Medicine

    • In vivo Expression of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis Arabinomannan Antigen
      During Murine Infection


April 16, 2001
Program Schedule. Division U program schedule (symposia and poster sessions) can be found here.


April 09, 2001
Election Results. 
Linda B Adams of LSU has been elected as Chair-Elect for 2001.  J. Michael Miller of CDC has been elected as Divisional Group I Representative for 2-year terms.  For a complete listing of elected ASM officers, click here.


April 02, 2001
101st General Meeting. 
This year's General Meeting will be at Orlando, Florida on May 20-24, 2001.  The Preliminary Program can be found here.  Pre-registration closes on April 17, 2001.


September 21, 2000
101st General Meeting Information. 
Call for Abstracts.  Additional information here.

Novel species.  A few novel species of has been noted in recent publications of International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

  • Mycobacterium kubicae
  • Mycobacterium elephantis

March 21, 2000
General Meeting Information. 
Division U's 100th General Meeting information can be obtain here.

Novel species.  A few novel species of has been noted in recent publications of International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.


October 8, 1999
Robert-A. Ollar of St. Vincents Hospital and Medical Center of New York wrote:

I would like to inform the members of Division of a new textbook entitled, "Molecular Mycobacteriology: Techniques and Clinical Applications". This tome is published by Marcel Dekker Publishing House of New York. The work encompases diverse topics involving both Mycobacterial and Nocardial Molecular Biology. The book is edited by Robert-A. Ollar and Nancy D. Connell. We are proud of the fact that many of the contributing authors are members of Division U.


July 21, 1999
Book Review. Division U has received some books for review.   Volunteers are needed to read and summarize the books.  The review will be posted here on this website for public access.  If you are interested, please contact the chairperson.


July 2, 1999
Website Additions. Two additional sections for the website have been proposed.  We need your help in designing and completing these sections.  One section will be dealing with membership issues, and the other will be dealing with regional activities.  If you have any announcements, upcoming events, or archive materials for various regional ASM Division U activities, please submit them to Kilen Chiu.

Summary of Division U activity from 99th General Meeting:

Division Meeting was held on Tuesday June 1, 1999 12:00 -1:00p.m.

  • Awards were presented to the students for their outstanding abstracts.
  • Kilen Chiu was recognized for his contribution to the website for the division.
  • Utility of the website and the listserv was discussed.
  • Members were asked to verify their current division association.
  • Chair-Elect and Alternate Councilor nominees were announced.  See Election section for more detail.

Division Lecture/Symposium was on Tuesday June1, 1999 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.   Title of the session was 100 Years of Tuberculosis Research.  The lecturer was Stewart T. Cole of Institut of Pasteur of Paris, France.  The Title of the talk was Comparative Mycobacterial Genomics.

Additional Symposiums of Division U:

  • June 1, 1999  Biochemistry and Physiology of Mycobacteria in the Post Genomic Era
  • June 2, 1999  Hot Topics in Clinical Mycobacteriology
  • June 2, 1999  Biology of the Mycobacterium / Host Cell Interface

Poster Sessions of Division U:

  • May 31, 1999  Molecular Basis and Detection of Drug Resistance in Mycobacteria
  • May 31, 1999  Clinical Mycobacteriology II
  • June 1, 1999  Molecular Epidemiology of Bacterial Mycobacterial Pathogens
  • June 1, 1999  Susceptibility Testing of the Pathogenic Mycobacteria
  • June 2, 1999  Genetic and Biochemistry of the Mycobacteria
  • June 2, 1999  Immunity, Vaccinology and Virulence of the Mycobacteria

May 17, 1999
Candidates for new positions. For additional information go to the Upcoming Election section.


May 4, 1999
Annual Divisional Meeting at ASM in Chicago. The annual Division U meeting will be held at 12 noon on Tuesday June 1 in Rm E351 of McCormack place. As advertised, a box lunch with drinks will be provided thanks to the generosity of three sponsors: Pathogenesis, Gen-Probe, and Becton-Dickinson. If all goes well this will be the same room where this years divisional lecture will follow at 2:00 P.M.

ASM Annual Meeting Divisional Lecture. As most of you probably know this years Divisional Lecturer for Div U is Stewart Cole of the Unite de Genetique Moleculaire of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. As molecular biology expanded out knowledge of the biology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by quantum leaps, Stewart was at the forefront and his work includes studies of the mechanisms of resistance in isoniazid, and the genome project of M. tuberculosis which culminated in the publication of the complete genomic sequence of H37Rv in Nature in June of last year . Stewarts title for his lecture is "Comparative Mycobacterial Genomics."

Student Awardees for ASM Annual Meeting. As previously noted, a number of students received travel awards to present at this years ASM annual meeting. The 12 winners are Mark Fisher, Mathew Florczyk, Leoned Gines, James Gomez, Robert Jovell, Barbara Miller, Leopoldo Portillo-Gomez, Claudia Romero, Mark Schulbach, Dedire Schwartz, Jun Wei, and Wenming Zhu. Their work is outstanding, and the Division will give each of them an award at the annual meeting so we ask that those who read their names here to be sure and attend !!


April 6, 1999
There has been more updates to the Links and the FAQ sections. Also, a correction has been made on the amount of the student award noted below.


March 15, 1999
There has been substantial update to the Links section. Also, the instruction of subscribing to the listserv has been changed. Please visit the ListServ page for the latest instruction. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.


February 10, 1999
Plans for 1999 annual meeting in Chicago. Plans are well underway for the upcoming annual meeting in Chicago, May 30 - June 3. The meeting will be held at McCormick Place, which is one of the largest convention centers in the U.S. so space will not be a problem. It is just off historic Michigan avenue, and convenient to almost all hotels.

This is a special meeting because it is the 100th anniversary of the ASM. Much emphasis of the meeting will be on the historical evolution of the clinical and basic sciences, especially tuberculosis, as evidenced by the multiple old photographic prints used to make the cover of your preliminary meeting program.

At the program meeting in Washington, DC on February 5-6 abstract sessions were added to the already formalized symposia. We have four scheduled symposia which include:

1) Biochemistry and Physiology of Mycobacteria in the Post Genomic Era
2) 100 years of Tuberculosis research
3) Hot topics in Clinic Mycobacteriology
4) Biology of the Mycobacterium/Host Cell Interface

These symposia are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

There are 6 poster sessions which include:

1) Clinical Mycobacteriology
2) Molecular Basis and Detection of Drug Resistance
3) Molecular Epidemiology of Mycobacterial/Bacterial Pathogens
4) Susceptibility testing of the Pathogenic Mycobacteria
5) Immunity, Vaccinology, and Virulence of Mycobacteria
6) Genetics and Biochemistry of Mycobacteria

These are tentatively scheduled for Monday through Wednesday, but final timing has not been established.

Things have gone smoothly and we look forward to an exciting meeting. Many thanks to Chairman-Elect Ken Stover and Past Chairwoman Kathy Eisenach who greatly helped your current chairman to organize these sessions.

New Chair-Elect. The votes are in and Larry Schlesinger of Iowa has been elected the new Chairman-Elect. Congratulations. The term of office is one year with a year of trying to learn the ropes while chair-elect. Larry will assume his position as Chairman-Elect after the 1999 annual meeting (July 1). The new Divisional Group Representative (we are in Group I) is J. Michael Miller (CDC) whose office begins on the same day, and will serve for 2 years.

Annual Division Meeting. The annual division meeting is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday at 12:30 at the annual meeting to immediately precede the division lecture. A lunch will be provided as it was last year. We encourage everyone to attend, if only to be sure the lunches do not go to waste.

Student Awards. Students who submit abstracts to the annual meeting which are accepted and are of high quality are eligible for student travel awards. This year 12 students from Division U were chosen for these awards, and will receive special recognition at our division meeting as well as receiving a travel stipend to the meeting of $400 (not $750 as previously noted - apologies from the chairperson who was in error about the amount). Congratulations to all these individuals!!


Many thanks to our webmaster who has made your first ever Division U web page a reality.

If you have things/topics/ideas you think the membership would be interested in, please e-mail your current chairman.


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