The ISTT is proud to announce the winners of the TT2106 ISTT Registration Awards and the ISTT & Genentech Travel Awards.
This year, the ISTT Board of Directors has awarded 12 ISTT members an ISTT Registration Award, which will cover their registration fee for TT2016.
Registration Awardees
Congratulations to:
Samy Alghadban
Katherine Bovariak
Carmen Cucarella
Paul Devenney
Denise Grant Lanza
Melissa Larson
Peter Major
Anna Novoa
Sara Ortica
Karolina Piotrowska-Nitsche
Lucas Pitt
Selin Yagcioglu
Travel Awardees
The ISTT and Genentech have also awarded 2 of the successful applicants an additional travel award. The awardees are: Melissa Larson from the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Missouri, USA and Sara Ortica Gatti from the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience, Paris, France. Their award includes airfare to and accommodation at TT2016. Both travel award winners will be presenting their work at the meeting.
Melissa Larson (left), Sara Ortica (right)
Post prepared and submitted by Elizabeth Williams on behalf of the ISTT Board of Directors.
The official results of the recent election for the ISTT Board of Directors are in, and we congratulate Branko Zevnik, Lynn Doglio and Peter Hohenstein on their election to the ISTT Board. Branko Zevnik (Cologne, Germany) is the head of the in vivo Research Facility at the University of Cologne. Lynn Doglio (Chicago, USA) is the Director of the Transgenic and Targeted Mutagenesis Laboratory at Northwestern University. Peter Hohenstein (Edinburgh, United Kingdom) is a Group Leader and Chair of the Small Animal Facility Management Committee at The Roslin Institute. All three candidates received the support of the majority of voting ISTT members. While they will start their three-year terms at TT2016 to be held in Prague, Czech Republic, they will be immediately appointed as Board members-elect. This will allow them to interact with the rest of the ISTT Board members and become familiar with the administration and management of the ISTT. Congratulations to all of them!
In addition, the ISTT would like to express its respect and sincere appreciation for the commitment and participation of all the candidates who were involved in the ISTT election process. As well, we would like to thank Tom Fielder, Wojtek Auerbach, and Boris Jerchow for their service on the ISTT Council and Board of Directors. These three Board members have contributed greatly to the management of the ISTT (and will continue to do so until TT2016). It is due in large part to the contributions of our members that we have the vibrant Society that we do.
Plan to attend the 10th Transgenic Animal Research Conference (TARC X) in August of 2015. At this international meeting you will learn the latest developments in the field of non-murine transgenic animals. In celebration of the 10th conference in this series the program will contain nine review talks, to be published in a special issue of Transgenic Research. Once again the conference will be held at the beautiful Granlibakken Resort and Conference Center, high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains adjacent to beautiful Lake Tahoe. This meeting is co-sponsored by the ISTT.
Rooms are limited, so plan to register early. The conference web site opened February 1, 2015 for registrations and submission of poster abstracts. The following list of speakers confirms again that this is conference not to be missed. Additionally, in conjunction with Recombinetics, Inc there will be a special one day program on August 13th for the livestock, poultry and aquaculture industries on the application of GE animals. A list of confirmed speakers and topics, as well as additional information, registration and poster submission forms may be found on the conference web site (http://conferences.ucdavis.edu/transgenic). We invite you to join us for this interesting and important conference and learn more about the genetic future of the livestock industry.
Confirmed Speakers:
Reviews
Elizabeth Maga/Jim Murray (UC Davis) GE livestock for agriculture
Chris Rogers (Exemplar Genetics) GE livestock for biomedical models
Heiner Niemann (Hannover) Xenotransplantation
Tim Doran (CSIRO, Australia) GE Poultry
Pablo Ross (UC Davis) iPS/Stem cells
Jun Wu (Salk Institute) Organ complementation
Bruce Whitelaw (Edinburgh) Gene editing/gene targeting
Luciana Bertolini (Brazil) Production of pharmaceuticals
Kevin Wells (Missouri) Regulation of transgenic animals
About ISTT: The International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) was founded in 2006, and is registered in Buffalo NY, USA, as a not for profit (NFP) organization. It currently represents an enthusiastic group of more than 700 members worldwide. We seek to foster communication and technology-sharing to enhance scientific research and to advance the field of animal transgenesis, particularly as it applies to experimental models in science. We represent the interests of scientists as well as technicians working in the field of transgenic technologies. The ISTT sponsors a series of periodic international transgenic technology (TT) meetings.
Job Description: This is a part-time job, may be conducted from home, and offers the candidate great flexibility. It is expected to require an average of 25 hours per week. Workloads may be considerably higher during the peak period of membership renewals and during the organization of the periodic TT meetings. The candidate must be able to travel to TT meetings, which are hosted at various venues worldwide every 18 months. The Society will provide the candidate with a laptop, support for Internet access, and a mobile phone to conduct Society business.
Job Specific Responsibilities: Administrative assistant position. Duties will include:
• Assist the ISTT President in reporting activities and other general administrative tasks.
• Assist the ISTT Treasurer with tracking of incomes and expenses.
• Act as a central contact point for all ISTT stakeholders.
• Register new members and renew existing memberships.
• Maintain current contact information of all members.
• Support the organization of the global meetings.
• Attend TT meetings to help represent the ISTT and help with administrative duties – meetings are all over the world and require travelling.
• Assist the ISTT Secretary with the preparation of minutes of ISTT General Assemblies and ISTT Board meetings.
• Monitor ISTT contracts with sponsors.
• Maintain an ISTT agenda and send reminders for upcoming deadlines to ISTT members (e.g. membership renewals, registrations, etc.)
Candidate Requirements: 2+ years experience as an Administrative Assistant. Independent, self-starter with strong organizational skills. [Alternative experience demonstrating administrative capability will be considered.] Excellent time management and ability to manage deadlines. Fluent English – Strong verbal and written communication skills. Experience in identifying and fulfilling NFP society needs. Experience with project management tools, including but not limited to: MS Excel, MS Word, MS Project, MS PowerPoint. Webmaster and content management not a must but a plus.
Douglas Strathdee and his colleagues have prepared the following collection of eight Posters to advertise the TT2014 meeting, illustrated with beautiful Edinburgh pictures. Please, help us announcing and disseminating the TT2014 meeting by putting one or several of these Posters at your centres, institutions, facilities, departments, universities. The TT meeting is a unique forum occurring every 18 months where to discuss the latest technical developments and applications on animal transgenesis. This is a conference that can’t be missed by anyone interested in this subject! Thanks for helping us advertise the TT2014 meeting!
The ISTT wishes you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) wishes you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!. The already traditional ISTT Christmas Postcard has been conceived this year by Elizabeth Williams (TASQ, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), who managed to engage the rest of ISTT council members to contribute with Christmas scenes taken from the places where they live or work, threfore providing all of us with the nice opportunity to grasp how the Christmas season is perceived and how cities are decorated in several countries around the world. All the 34 Christmas pictures shown here have been captured directly and kindly shared by ISTT council members, as follows: Brisbane-Australia (by Elizabeth Williams), Sydney-Australia (by Karen Brennan), Colmar-France (by Benoît Kanzler), Ridgewood-NJ-USA (by Wojtek Auerbach), Madrid-Spain (by Lluis Montoliu), Lexington-KY-USA (by Carlisle Landel), Irvine-CA-USA (by Tom Fielder), Salamanca-Spain (by Manuel Sanchez-Martin), Pasadena-CA-USA (by Shirley Pease), Berlin-Germany (by Boris Jerchow), Buffalo-NY-USA (by Aimee Stablewski), Ann Arbor-MI-USA (by Thom Saunders). Hope you all enjoy them!. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Jan Parker-Thornburg has served as ISTT council member from 2006 to May 31, 2013
Today, on June 1st, 2013, Jan Parker-Thornburg, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA, and Manager of the Genetically Engineered Mouse Facility (GEMF), has stepped down from the ISTT council, voluntarily, after having been part of the ISTT Executive Committee since the inception of this Society, in 2006, being elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. With her most generous gesture, Jan allowed a new council member to be elected in 2013, and gave herself the required distance from council, in order to prepare herself to run for the elections of the next President of the ISTT during 2014, as she recently declared, hoping to deserve and receive the support from ISTT members and be elected among any additional candidate.
The activities and initiatives where Jan has participated or led while serving as member of the ISTT council are numerous. Just to name a few: the great meeting she organized in Houston in January 2008; her leadership and ISTT driving force to become an AALAS affiliate organization in May 2009; her generous effort preparing embryo handling tubing/kits that were distributed among ISTT members in Berlin, at the TT2010 meeting; her leadership in the nominations committee, through which all of the new members have been eventually elected to serve at the ISTT council, not to mention her continuous and most dedicated participation in all council discussions.
Dear Jan, on behalf of the entire ISTT family, you truly deserve our gratitude, respect and a big applause. Let’s hope that this farewell is only transient and soon you will come back to lead and further boost our Society!
You can donwload a 1-page flyer for the 11th Transgenic Technology (TT2013) meeting, that will be held in Guangzhou (China), on 25-27 February 2013, followed by a 3-day practical course (28 February-2 March 2013) on basic procedures in transgenesis. Please print this 1-page advert and help the ISTT disseminating our most important event among anyone interested.
Project Offer: Website design/update, maintenance and technical support for the ISTT
The International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) plans to update its website and is seeking individuals/companies capable of developing a new concept for the site, modern, professional, appealing and adapted to the projects, events and activities associated with the ISTT.
Layout should be based on a CMS (Drupal, Joomla, Concrete or similar), for ease of update and modification of web content by identified individuals with publishing permissions. The new concept may include defining new letter types, sizes and colours, to be used consistently throughout the website.
Interested candidates should contact ISTT by email (istt@transtechsociety.org) and include a CV, list of projects developed/portfolio of previous work, proposed budget and references, as well as any additional information that could be relevant for this project. Applications are requested by March 31st, 2012.
Ideally, the website design proposals should be prepared for review on a test web server, although alternative methods are available if needed (please contact the ISTT for details). A basic layout for the new website proposal, showing the concept of the new design and including illustrative examples of functionality are required for evaluation purposes. Thereafter, upon selection and agreement on conditions, the selected candidate will develop the entire new website for the ISTT.
Projects will be assessed by quality, functionality, ease in modifying web contents, integration with server and associated costs. Candidates can be based anywhere in the world. Selected candidates for this project and technical support may be invited for an interview through Skype.
