J.Lawry, Jan.10.1997
Greetings from the Royal Microscopical Society Cytometry Section, and a Happy New Year to you all, especially my personal friends throughout Europe!
May I first apologise for the silence from this committee, but I was waiting for our committee meeting before I made my report. The RMS Cytometry Section is recognised by ISAC as the UK flow cytometry society. We represent some 100 cytometerists as members of the RMS, but there must be 400+ other potential members throughout the UK. We had our meeting on 8th January and discussed the concept of the European Federation.
In general terms we were in favour of the European Federation, and think that if it is formulated by/for cytometerists, it may meet its aims and ambitions beter than the ESACP has done to date, which has always appeared more as a Pathology forum than a cytometry one. We consider a European network to be a valuable resource for cytometerists. Also, by obtaining opinions from all national societies and establishing basic terms of reference, it may prove to be more successful than the ISAC equivalent.
We consider that basic questions must be addressed, and answers agreed upon. This may take some considerable time if European political issues are anything to go by!! For example:-
what are the aims of the society - what does it hope to achieve (short term and long term)?
what would membership offer to the cytometerist, that membership of national societies and ISAC does not provide already - and what would the cost be, ie. Why should someone join?
could membership be via ISAC with a small additional charge such as for clinical cytometry?
what lines of communication would be established?
what conferences would it organise and/or support?
who would be on the committee, how would they communicate, if they meet who would pay?
We think that the European Federation would only function to serve all cytometerists in Europe if it were to become an active organisation under the umbrella of ISAC, retaining strong links with ISAC at all times, possibly using their skills, experience, administrative knowledge etc. Perhaps on the years ISAC didn't hold full meetings, the European section could?
Certainly the European Federation would form the basis for excellent means of communication for meetings etc (for which I draw your attention to our WEB page for news of meetings we are organising with the RMS For more information about membership, contact the Royal Microscopical Society: info@rms.org.uk
So in conclusion, we are in favour of the European Federation, but there are many issues to resolve.
Best wishes to you all, John.
PS: Please parden the quick advert. In fact here are some more:-
Immunophenotyping meeting, and RMS Cytometry Section AGM. Tuesday 24th June 1997. Royal Marsden Hospital Conference Centre. Fulham Road, London SW36J.
RMS FLOW97 (8th July 1997)/CYTO97 (6-9th July 1997) University
of York FLOW97 is a one day flow cytometry-related meeting in the centre
of CYTO97, the programme including:
Plenary session 1
Cytokines - Dr Frances Balkwill, ICRF London
Stem Cells - Dr Anne-Marie Buckle, UMIST, Manchester
Adhesion molecules - Dr David Simmons, Inst. Mol. Medicine, John Radcliffe,
Oxford
Enzyme analysis - to be arranged
{ Lunch and poster viewing for proffered abstracts}
Plenary session 2
Cell cycle control - Professor Paul Smith, UWCM, Cardiff, UK
Programmed cell death - Dr Caroline Dive, UMIST, Manchester
Apoptosis - To be confirmed
Laser Scanning Cytometry - Mr David Rew, Leicester Glenfield Hospital
British Association for Cancer Research: Southampton University, 2-4th April 1997. Workshop on "Cell cycle control" on Friday 4th April from 1:30-4:00pm (Organizer - Dr John Lawry).
British Society for Haematology: Harrogate, 14-17th April 1997. Special flow cytometry symposia on Thursday 17th April 8:30-1:00pm. Invited speakers - Dr Alberto Orfao, Department of Cytometry, University of Salamanca, Spain on "Immunophenotyping in the study of leukaemia; Dr Mike Ormerod on "Cell cycle and apoptosis" and Ricardo Morilla on "Quantitative flow cytometry".
THE END !