Division Newsletters

The Division of Biological Chemistry publishes its newsletter on a semiannual schedule. Hear the latest news from our Chair, and read about upcoming meetings and symposia, award nominations, officer elections, and travel grants

Summer 2007 Newsletter

The Division of Biological Chemistry had a great year in 2007. We are very thankful to Tadgh Begley and the program committee for the enormous effort they put into organizing the wonderful programming at the ACS fall meeting. This year the Biological Chemistry Division hosted exciting award symposia for the Repligen, Pfizer, and Lilly awards as well as the first annual Murray Goodman Memorial Prize. This award was established in memory of Dr. Murray Goodman, founding editor of Biopolymers, by John Wiley & Sons and the Editor-in-Chief of Biopolymers to recognize outstanding achievement in one or more areas of biochemistry. I would like to congratulate the 2007 and 2008 award winners and to thank the corporate sponsors for their support in recognizing the best of the excellent scientists in the biochemical area.

The Biological Chemistry Division continued two important outreach activities this year. The Division provided funds to subsidize joining the ACS and traveling to the fall ACS meeting for 10 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows so that they could present their work at this meeting. This initiative is important for mentoring and developing the next generation of scientists. Additionally, the Division provides roughly a dozen grants each year to support symposia presented at ACS Regional Meetings and other meetings of interest to the membership of our Division.

I would like to thank the two officers, John Richard, secretary, and Eugene Mueller, treasurer, who are responsible for the hard work of keeping the Division running. In particular, in the past year John Richard and Uli Iserloh of Bright Launch launched an updated Website at www.biochemdivision.org. This website contains important information about the activities of the Division. Finally, I urge everyone to vote in the upcoming election for members of key Biological Chemistry Division committees. These elected officials will play an important role in determining the future direction of the Division.

The Division of Biological Chemistry is highly interactive, as evidenced by the many symposia at the 2007 fall ACS meeting that are co-sponsored with other ACS divisions. The DBC welcomes participation by scientists with diverse interests in Biological Chemistry, including those whose interests overlap with analytical, medicinal, inorganic, organic, and carbohydrate chemistry as well as the emerging discipline of chemical biology. To continue this trend, for the first time the Biological Chemistry Division is sponsoring programs at both the Spring (April 6 - 10, 2008 in New Orleans, LA) and the Fall (August 17-21, 2008 in Philadelphia PA) national ACS meetings. In contrast to the fall programming, the spring meeting will consist primarily of short, 20 minute talks selected from the submitted abstracts. The goal of this program is expand the opportunities for the members, especially the younger members, of the Biological Chemistry Division to present their work to the chemical community.

One challenge for all areas of Chemistry is to attract and mentor scientists from diverse backgrounds. The Chemistry community has been actively addressing this challenge by participating in two national workshops developing plans and strategies to increase the representation of women and minorities on the faculty of research universities. These workshops, entitled Building Strong Academic Programs through Gender Equality (Jan. 2006) and Excellence Empowered by a Diverse Academic Workforce: Achieving Racial & Ethnic Equity in Chemistry (Sept. 2007), are providing information about the barriers to success, developing best practices to encourage participation, and impacting policies in the chemical sciences nationally. The future of Chemistry depends on our ability to attract the best and brightest minds to the chemical disciplines from diverse backgrounds.

Carol Fierke
Chair, ACS Division of Biological Chemistry

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