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Minutes of the Business Meeting of the Microbial Control Division,
Warwick University, Coventry, UK, August 6, 2008
Meeting was called to order, at 1900 hr by MCD Chair Paresh Shah. 33 MCD members, including the officers, were present. Current officers present were introduced to the members assembled.
Minutes of the 2007 meeting in Quebec were briefly reviewed, having been circulated previously by email and on web site. Susan MacIntosh moved to accept the minutes as written, with Rosalind James seconding, followed by unanimous vote of those present to accept the minutes.
Paresh summarized MCD contributions to the Warwick meeting, namely 37 talks (4 from students) in three oral sessions, two symposia & one workshop, as well as 22 posters (4 from students) in one poster session.
Symposia convened were "Regulatory and market barriers for microbials" (MCD sponsored) "Green Pest management" (Cross-Divisional with Nematode Divison); and "Biological Solutions to Pest Control" (industry-sponsored workshop).
Nora Lawo, Ph.D. student at Reckenholz, Switzerland, was awarded the MCD student travel award for 2008. A total of 13 applications were received; 8 of the 13 had also applied concurrently to other Divisions (Bacteria, Fungi).
The MCD web site has still to be updated. The web page template has been completed but information gaps need to be addressed; MCD officers will need to focus on this over the next three months.
The status of SIP finances and impact on MCD was next presented. One temporary measure from SIP Council is a freeze on speaker support for the 2009 meeting. The MCD travel award will be maintained (One student for US$750). It should be noted the MCD does have the flexibility to not confer a student travel award if none of the applications are considered appropriate for MCD.
MCD members were then reminded of the availability of membership endowments for scientists in lesser developed nations. Such endowments pay SIP membership for 3 years. The current list, being reviewed, contains 15 recipients, and additional nominations from the SIP membership are solicited.
Current MCD Finances were then present by Paresh. Our division has 182 members (including 11 students). The MCD had a dues income of US$310 in 2008. It disbursed a student award of $750, speaker support for Dr. M.D. Taylor (Insectigen) and $350 towards the MCD workshop mixer.
Paresh offered a collective appreciation by the MCD to Dr Ken Narva and Dow Agrosciences for their generous contribution in support of the mixer.
There is some ambiguity about the actual amount in the MCD accounts, which is being clarified, along with accounts for other Divisions, by the Executive Secretary, Cecilia Schmitt, and SIP Council. .
The next order of business was nomination and election of a Member-at-Large to replace Sean Moore, whose term has expired. Duties of a Member-at-Large are to solicit/write articles for the newsletter, and judge applications for the travel award and student presentations at the annual meeting. Steve Arthurs, Zihni Demirbag, and Nina Jenkins were nominated. Nina Jenkins was elected as the new Member-at-Large.
The next item on the agenda was a discussion of the Bt standard:
- Beginning in 2002 the MCD provided funds towards the production and validation of a new standard produced by Valent Biosciences/Abbott Laboratories in 2005.
- A potency value, using the Valent/Abbott Trichoplusia ni quality assurance bioassay, was assigned to the standard in 2005.
- In 2007 the next steps were identified: potency was to be confirmed in bioassay by Benzon Research and Certis laboratories. The raw bioassay data are now to be transferred to Steve Wraight and Carrie Hauxwell for standardized analysis and summarization for publication.
- A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) needs to be created for the standard, a brochure to publicize it, and a label. Valent has produced a potential label, but it needs review and consensus approval.
- Joel Siegel USDA ARS, Parlier CA, has samples of the standard to ship to requesting parties and he should be contacted with all requests.
- It was then decided that Valent Biosciences (Benson, Ave) would finish the MSDA, Label, and brochure.
- MCD members present agreed that the wording include "Provided by Valent Biosciences in cooperation with the Microbial Control Division of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology".
The MCD "best practices guidelines" project was next discussed. This project involves preparation of short leaflets and/or brochures on different microbial control topics, e.g. Microsporidia identification techniques, and involve web resources (PDF documents not intended for printing), with translations into other languages as an important element. The goal is to prepare 5 leaflets by 2009 meeting and assess concept viability. Topics and writers for the pilot study are to be identified by the existing MCD officers with Paresh Shah (pareshashah@mac.com) coordinating.
Other business
Symposia for the 2009 meeting were solicited. Proposers need to include justification, outline, speakers and alternates. Deadline is November 2008 so that MCD can meet a deadline of January 2009 for submission to SIP Council and the organizers of the 2009 SIP meeting to be held in Utah, USA.
Two possible topics were presented. One suggestion involves successful examples of microbial control using classical, inoculative or non-innundative augmentative methods with examples from various countries, advances etc. The second possible topic is a discussion of factors in the success of microbial control programs.
No other business being put forward, the meeting was adjourned by unanimous vote at 19:30.
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