Production of safe drinking water · March / April 2012 SIMB NEWS 35 feature Impact of sanitation...

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March / April 2012 / V.62 N.2

Production of safe drinking water

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feature35 Production of safe drinking water

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contents SIMB News | March / April 2012 | Vol 62 No 2

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Impact of sanitation and drinking water quality on a global level

Safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation systems are fundamental re-quirements for achieving and maintaining a healthy human population. Although great strides have been made worldwide over the past decade to increase the ac-cessibility to safe drinking water and ba-sic sanitation, a significant percentage of humans across the globe still do not have access to an improved water supply or basic sanitation facilities. The produc-tion and delivery of potable water to the world’s population is of utmost impor-tance in preserving life (Ashbolt 2004). A large portion of the population residing in third-world countries, such as those of Sub-Saharan Africa, is utilizing sub-opti-mal drinking water sources. These sources may include surface water (lakes, streams and irrigation channels) and unprotected wells or springs. Since 1990, there has been a 5% increase in people worldwide who have access to an improved water supply (78% in 1990 to 83% in 2004) (WHO and UNICEF 2008). Improved water supplies include piped household water connec-tions, rainwater collection, protected wells and springs and public taps.

The United Nations General Assem-bly declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation in order to raise awareness of

this topic. To understand the magnitude of the situation, one must consider the dichotomy of the world’s population as a whole (urban and rural communities that encompass developed and third-world na-tions alike), as well as the types of sanita-tion conditions that currently exist. The types of sanitation available can be bro-ken down into four categories: open def-ecation, unimproved sanitation (facilities that do not hygienically separate human excrement from human contact), shared sanitation (such as public toilets) and im-proved sanitation (systems that ensure the separation of human excreta from human contact). A 2006 WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water and Sanitation analysis claimed that over 2.5 billion people still do not have access to proper/improved sanitation. Almost half of those individuals do not have any ac-cess to sanitation facilities and thus must resort to the first demeaning option. The lack of proper sanitation leads directly to adverse health conditions, impoverished communities and reduced personal digni-ty. However grim the statistics may seem, the situation is improving. Currently 62% of the population is covered by improved sanitation facilities (an 8% increase since 1990). Still, underdeveloped regions, such as Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Af-rica, continue to have less than 33% cov-

erage for improved sanitation (WHO and UNICEF 2008).

The goal of the WHO/UNICEF proj-ect is to achieve 90% of the population uti-lizing improved drinking water sources by 2015. To make this possible, a global effort must be undertaken by individual govern-ments and members of industry to educate the public, implement basic sanitation and water purification technologies, as well as to develop cost-effective methods to treat emerging microbial and chemical threats.

Waterborne pathogens: background and significance to the drinking water treatment industry

Inadequate sanitation practices have a major impact on the production of safe drinking water. Risk assessment studies have identified a number of waterborne pathogens as being threats to our drink-ing water supply (Ashbolt et al. 2001; FAO/WHO 2003; Guillot and Loret 2009; Medema et al. 2009; Craun et al. 2010). An understanding of the diversity of these biological agents is necessary in order to adequately design a prevention or treat-ment strategy for potable water.

Waterborne pathogens are diverse and can be divided into four groups: bac-teria, viruses, protozoa and helminthes. Their impact on public health is typically

Production of safe drinking water: risks, challenges and approaches for evaluating water treatment systems

By Robert S. Donofrio, Ratul Saha, Nabaneeta Saha, Rick Andrew, and Susan T. Bagley


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assessed via the consideration of their source, route of transmission, growth characteristics, persistence in water sup-plies, resistance to disinfection and in-fectivity (WHO 2006). The majority of the waterborne pathogens are introduced to drinking water via human or animal feces, though some, such as Legionella, can grow in water distribution systems if the proper growth conditions exist. This introduction can be a direct result of poor hygiene and domestic sanita-tion conditions. Secondary contamina-tion of clothes, food and hands can also play a role in transmitting these patho-gens. Transmission and infection can be achieved through ingestion, inhalation and aspiration or direct contact (through bathing) (Moe 2006; WHO 2006; AWWA 2010). A majority of the waterborne agents possess a gastrointestinal route of infec-tion. Legionella, Mycobacterium and Nae-gleria fowleri, as well as other agents in high concentrations, can cause infection through the respiratory route (Falkinham III et al. 2001; Marciano-Cabral and Ca-bral 2007). Opportunistic pathogens, such as Burkholderia pseudomallei, Aeromonas and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, may utilize the mucous membranes and skin to enter the host and cause infection (Inglis 2000; Currie 2001). For these opportunistic pathogens, individuals possessing a com-promised immune system, as well as the elderly and young children, would be at the highest risk of infection if exposed to contaminated water.

In regards to the waterborne patho-gens, the following organisms are consid-ered the most significant to public health:

Bacteria - Campylobacter jejuni, pathogenic Escherichia coli, enterohemor-rhagic E. coli, Legionella spp., Salmonella spp. (including typhi), Shigella spp., Vibrio cholerae and Yersinia enterocolitica (An-gulo 1997; Thoerner et al. 2003; WHO 2006). E. coli, C. jejuni, Legionella and Shigella have a moderate to high relative infectivity (low infectious doses). Other than Shigella and Vibrio, these bacterial pathogens may persist in the water supply for prolonged periods of time (Kaper et al. 1995; Koenraad et al. 1997; Nataro and

Kaper 1998; Alamanos 2000). However, most are relatively susceptible to chlorine disinfection (WHO 2006).

Viruses – Adenoviruses, Enterovi-ruses, Hepatitis A and E, Noroviruses, and Rotaviruses. Each of these viral pathogens possesses prolonged persistence in the water supply, moderate to high chlorine resistance and has low infectious doses (Cuthbert 2001; Grabow et al. 2001).

Protozoa and Helminthes – Acan-thamoeba spp., Cryptosporidium parvum, Cyclospora cayetanesis, Entamoeba his-tolytica, Giardia intestinalis, Naegleria fowleri, Toxoplasma gondii, Draculuncus medinensis, Schistosoma spp. All of these organisms possess a high relative infec-tivity and most are resistant to disinfec-tion via chlorine or other related halogens (WHO 2006).

Water treatment systems: importance and limitation of membrane filtration

In the United States, the quality and safety of potable water has been a focus of state and federal regulations since the inception of the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 (Montgomery 1985). Multiple amendments to the Act have been made over the past three decades to address chemical contaminants and leachates (i.e., lead), emerging pathogens, and alterna-tive disinfection technologies (AWWA 2010). The area of microbial disinfec-tion has received heightened awareness since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In 2004, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) published EPA/600/R-04/063: Water Security Re-search and Technical Support Action Plan. This document was drafted with the intent to address the need for safer water by encouraging research efforts for the development of water treatment tech-nologies for the inactivation or removal of these specific pathogens (USEPA 2004b).

The types of treatment systems are varied and include ultraviolet (UV) irra-diation disinfection systems, ozonation systems, halogens and halogenated resins and membrane based filtration systems (AWWA 2010). The microbial disinfec-

tion system that one may select depends on a number of factors, including organ-ism size, charge (isoelectric point) and resistivity to the disinfectant in ques-tion. Halogen-based systems, including chlorine and chlorine dioxide, are widely used and are appealing for their residual anti-microbial efficacy exhibited by the active chemical agent. However, the key waterborne pathogens vary greatly in their susceptibility to certain chemical disinfectants. Furthermore, harmful dis-infection by-products (DBP) may form via interaction with indigenous compounds, such as humic acids, and thus need to be monitored and controlled. Ozone and UV irradiation have proven to be effec-tive against a wide variety of pathogens (Bolton 1999; Eischied et al. 2009; Ochiai et al. 2011). However, water supplies with increased turbidity or elevated levels of dissolved organics could reduce the ef-fectiveness of these systems. UV irradia-tion also lacks any residual effect within the water system. An additional drawback to ozone is the potential to interact with bromide ions naturally present in drink-ing water to form the DBP of bromate ion (Montgomery 1985; Angulo 1997; Kumar et al. 2011; Genuino and Espino 2012). Because of these issues, many water treat-ment facilities have found increased value in the incorporation of a size exclusion-based technology.

Membrane technologies are among the most versatile water treatment pro-cesses with regard to their ability to effec-tively remove a wide variety of contami-nants (Madaeni 1999; Zhao et al. 2011). Membrane devices, most notably reverse osmosis systems, have often been deployed as emergency water treatment solutions following natural disasters, such as hurri-canes and tsunamis (Atkinson 2005). The classifications of the filtration systems are based on the nominal pore size of the fil-ter membrane. Traditional microfiltration utilizes membranes possessing pore sizes between 0.1 and 1.0 mm. Reverse osmosis (RO) treatment devices possess pore sizes 10 to 100-fold less than those used in mi-crofiltration. RO membranes incorporate the principle of cross-flow filtration, that


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is, incoming water flows over and paral-lel to the filter medium. When pressure is applied to the membrane, a majority of the water leaves the system as reject water and contains the concentrated particulate unable to pass through the membrane. A lesser volume of water diffuses through the membrane and is free of contami-nants (permeate). The small pore size of the membrane allows RO systems to re-move bacteria, viruses and dissolved sol-ids present in the water via size exclusion. Breakthrough of the organisms and par-ticles may still occur if imperfections in the membrane are present. Bypass of the membrane could occur due to microscop-ic seal leaks (Sourirajan and Matsumara 1985; NSF International 2009). Membrane technologies may also be subject to bac-terial fouling due to the presence of het-erotrophic plate count bacteria (HPCs) indigenous to the water distribution sys-tem (Reasoner 2004; Ivnitsky et al. 2007; Zodrow et al. 2009; Kwon et al. 2011).

Diversity of HPCs in drinking water

The occurrence and prevalence of a diverse array of HPCs in water distribu-tion systems is well documented. Example genera of gram-negative bacteria that are commonly found naturally occurring within the distribution system, associated with biofilms or in planktonic form, are Sphingomonas, Pseudomonas, Alcaligenes, Acinetobacter, Caulobacter and Ralstonia. Gram-positive organisms from the genera of Bacillus, Corynebacterium, Micrococcus and Staphylococcus have all been docu-mented from similar water sources when using minimal nutrient media for recov-ery (Mergaert et al. 2001; WHO 2003; Al-len et al. 2004; Pavlov et al. 2004; Williams et al. 2004; Martiny et al. 2005; Donofrio et al. 2010a). A significant percentage of the HPCs isolated from drinking water distribution systems has been found to possess resistance to many natural and synthetic antibiotics (Mary et al, 2000; Jeena et al. 2006; Donofrio et al. 2010a). Additional studies show that some HPCs may contain other virulence factors usu-ally associated with pathogenic bacteria,

thus indicating that they may potentially act as opportunistic pathogens (Edberg et al. 1996; Papandreou et al. 2000).

Test surrogates for membrane filtration efficacy

To achieve the stringent micro-bial contaminant limits specified by the USEPA’s Water Security Research and Technical Support Action Plan, much ef-fort has been expended in the develop-ment of point of use and point of entry water treatment systems (AWWA 2010). Multiple protocols have been drafted to assess the efficacy of drinking water treat-ment systems using membrane filtration or other disinfectant technologies to re-move/inactivate waterborne pathogens (USEPA 2004a; USEPA 2006a; USEPA 2006b; NSF International 2008; NSF In-ternational 2011). These protocols utilize select microorganisms to “challenge” the test system. These organisms serve as sur-rogates for groups of organisms possess-ing similar biochemical traits, virulence factors or morphological characteristics. Surrogates are typically selected based on size, charge, hazard level and ease of cul-tivation and enumeration (James 1999). For example, NSF International’s protocol P231 for water purifier validation, based on the USEPA guide standard, incorpo-rates the Raoultella terrigenna and Polio-virus as surrogates for pathogenic bacteria and viruses, respectively (NSF Interna-tional 2008). Bacteriophages, such as MS2, phiX174 and fr, have also been utilized as non-pathogenic viral surrogates due to their small size and diverse surface charg-es (USEPA 2006a; USEPA 2006b). In most cases, a non-pathogenic surrogate is pre-ferred to limit exposure risk for the per-sonnel performing the validation assays.

The USEPA, through its Environ-mental Technology Verification (ETV) program, has developed a protocol to eval-uate RO treatment system performance under a simulated intentional or non-in-tentional microbiological contamination event (USEPA 2004a; USEPA 2006b). This protocol involves validating the removal efficiency by incorporating a series of “challenge” assays. In these assays, water

that has been spiked with a known con-centration of a bacterial surrogate is de-livered to a reverse osmosis unit. Treated permeate is evaluated for the presence the surrogate organism and its concentration is verified. The percent removal of the sur-rogate is then calculated.

In regard to bacterial surrogate selec-tion, organism size is a key determinant. The USEPA RO protocol is designed for validating the performance of these units under accidental or intentional release of bacterial agents into the water supply (USEPA 2004a). The smallest identified bacterium of concern, Francisella tulare-mia, can possess a minimum size of 0.2 mm in diameter (Burrows and Renner 1999). Brevundimonas diminuta was selected as the test surrogate for sub-micrometer porosity filters due to its small diameter (0.2 mm) when grown in minimal media (ASTM 2001; ASTM 2005; USEPA 2006a; USEPA 2006b). Other gram-negative or-ganisms capable of achieving the small cell diameter, such as Hydrogenophaga pseudoflava and Ralstonia picketti, have also been considered as well for use as sur-rogates in these applications.

Because of its size characteristics, B. diminuta has also been used as a test strain for the quality control of mem-brane filters used for sterilization in the pharmaceutical industry (Carter 1996; Griffiths et al. 2000; ASTM 2001; Sun-daram et al. 2001). B. diminuta, formerly belonging to the genus Pseudomonas, is a gram-negative, non-fermenting, rod shaped bacterium and belongs to the Alp-haproteobacteria class (Segers et al. 1994). B. diminuta’s closest phylogenetic relatives are members of the Caulobacter family (Segers et al. 1994). In contrast to species of Caulobacter, B. diminuta does not pos-sess the ability to form prosthecae (Stahl et al. 1992). Over time, this organism has been observed to produce extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) which could allow for attachment to membrane filters and thus cause fouling and potentially im-pact filtration efficiency (Badireddy et al. 2008). Clinically, this organism has been documented as causing opportunistic nosocomial infections in cancer patients


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Table 1. Comparison of microbiological standards and protocols for evaluating the microbial efficacy of drinking water treatment systems

Standard / Protocol

Key parameters and conditions for testing microbiological reduction

Microorganisms/ Reduction requirements Technology covered

Challenge water parameters General protocol

Proposed NSF Supplemental Std 244-3

R. terrigena - 6 Log MS-2, fr - 4 Log Cysts - 3.3 Log

mechanical filtration, e.g., membrane units; use on safe water only

1 wk each at pH 6, 7.5,9; at end of test 30 NTU, 10 ppm TOC, 1500 ppm TDS

2 units; 3 wk test; B. diminuta, daily R. terrigena & viruses; 3-48 h stagnations; ends w/ Ceramic purifier challenge; 50 sample pts; cyst-Std 53/ bact as surrogate

USEPA purifier std/protocol - 1987 (embodied within NSF P231)

R. terrigena - 6 Log Poliovirus 1 - 4 Log Rotovirus SA11 - 4 Log Cysts - 3 Log

UV, halogens, ceramics, adaptable to other technologies; can use on unsafe water

Ceramics/mechanical- 30 NTU, 10 ppm TOC, 1500 ppm TDS, pH 9, 4ºC; challenge w/ all organisms

3 units; 10-1/2 day test; 1st 6 days 4 sample pts w/ general test water; 1 stagnation, 4 days w/ challenge water during 4 sample pts; min. 24 sample pts

Israel std SI 1505 Part 1, Part 2

E. coli - 7 Log E. aerogenes - 7 Log S. faecalis - 7 Log P. aeruginosa - 7 Log no virus/cyst reduction

Part 1- Filter systems, UV Part 2- RO systems; presumed units for use on safe water only

Potable water spiked with bacteria used for challenge water

Initial 5-L challenge w/ 10E+7/100 mL bacteria; 2nd challenge at 90% of capacity; < 1 org/mL allowed; < 5x10E+3 HPC/L allowed

Japan JIS 3835-1990

P. diminuta - no specific reduction required, report results no virus/cyst reduction

membrane filters; use on safe water only

Sterilized dilute NaCl solution used for challenge water

Challenge must contain ≥ 10E+7 cfu/cm2 of filter surface area @ 2-4 mL/min per cm2 of filter area w/ max ∆P 30 psig; no acceptance criteria, just report results

Mexico NOM-ISO-SSA-1998

E. coli - 4 Log aerobic bact - 1.3 Log no virus/cyst reduction

domestic water treatment equipment; for use on “potable” water

Potable water spiked with bacteria used for challenge water

Challenge w/ >10E+4 E. coli/100 mL for 10 min, take 3 samples; < 1 cfu/100 mL allowed; ≥ 95% reduction of aerobic bacteria (HPC)

Australia/New Zealand AS/NZS 4348:1995

R. terrigena - 6 Log Poliovirus 1 - 4 Log Rotovirus SA11 - 4 Log Cysts - 3 Log

UV, halogens, ceramics, adaptable to other technologies; can use on unsafe water

Ceramics/mechanical- 30 NTU, 10 ppm TOC, 1500 ppm TDS, pH 9, 4ºC; challenge w/ all organisms

Same as EPA purifier protocol

Brazil ABNT NBR 14908

E. coli - 2 Log no virus/cyst reduction

plumbed-in systems; for use on “potable” water

Potable water spiked with bacteria, ≤ 1 NTU

Challenge w/ ≥ 10E+5 cfu/100 mL initially; run to 95% capacity w/ 0.5 ppm Cl2, retest w/ E. coli

Venezuela COVENIN 3377:1998

E. coli & P. aeruginosa - no reduction requirement, only to verify claims; no virus/cyst reduction

filtration systems, ozonation devices; presumed for use on safe water only

unknown

Initially flush units w/o org’s to check for coliform & HPC, then challenge with amount of org’s sufficient to verify log reduction claim; retest w/ org’s at end of capacity

Ven. COVENIN 2840:1998

same as COVENIN 3377: 1998

purifiers with ceramic elements; safe water only

unknownRequires lot-by-lot evaluation of ceramic elements, flow rate, leaks, filter length & dia.

California Guidelines 2004

technology dependent E. coli - 6 Log MS-2 - 4 or 6 Log Cysts - 3.3 Log

Protocol depends on technology; can include POE; can use on unsafe water

For mechanical reduction, high turbidity challenge not required; reduce FR to 0.05 initial flow rate w/ test dust

Depends on specific mechanical reduction technology; similar to EPA ceramic candle protocol; determine max flow rate to 120 psi; POE must meet SWTR or LT2, obtain permit; 6 Log MS-2 reduction for bact surrogate

WQA ORD0901E. coli. - 3 LogMS-3 – 3 Log

Pour-through, gravity fed systems

pH 6.5 – 8.5, TOC 0.1 – 5.0 mg/L, Turbidity 0.1 – 5 NTU, TDS 50 – 500 mg/L, Temp 17 – 25 ºC

Operate according to manufacturer’s usage pattern, samples at start-up, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of rated capacity


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(Ince and Hooper 2003; Han and Andrade 2005). Under certain growth conditions, B. diminuta can reach concentrations ex-ceeding 1 x 109 CFU per mL, thus making simulation of a gross contamination event possible (Lee et al. 2002; Donofrio et al. 2010a).

Current drinking water filtration validation protocols utilize non-selective media for enumeration of B. diminuta. In fact, a selective medium for B. diminuta has yet to be developed. The reason for this is that traditionally B. diminuta has been employed as a test organism for pharmaceutical-grade membrane filter validation. In this application sterile feed water is spiked with B. diminuta and the membrane filters are then exposed to the inoculated water (ASTM 2001). In validat-ing RO systems using a drinking water source, interference from HPCs indig-enous to the test system may lead to de-creased recoveries of the target organism since the colonies of B. diminuta require 48 hours until maturity on media such as R2A Agar (Governal et al. 1991; Donofrio et al. 2010a). This may impact the abil-ity to assess the performance of the wa-ter treatment devices being evaluated. If

the validation of the device is inaccurate, utilization of the unit to remediate water contaminated with waterborne pathogens may result in consumer illness or even death.

Selective methods for assessing performance of a treatment system with a focus on B. diminuta

To overcome the potential interfer-ence the HPCs may pose to enumeration of surrogates such as B. diminuta, a selec-tive and/or differential method for the test organism is desirable. Key considerations when designing a selective assay are assay time, specificity, ease of use and limit of detection. Rapid turn-around of results is an extremely important factor for the fil-ter manufacturer. The sooner that a man-ufacturer can assess the performance of a lot of filters, the sooner the lot can be re-leased and freed from the holding process. This ultimately saves cost in storage and allows for a greater volume of the filtra-tion devices to be manufactured and sold. Shorter testing time also allows the manu-facturer greater flexibility in the research and development process as a larger num-ber of filtration devices can be assessed in

lesser amount of time. Numerous isolation approaches have

been investigated using the surrogate’s metabolic and/or molecular profiles as a basis for selectivity. One approach is to investigate phenotypic traits or utilization of individual carbon sources that might be unique to the surrogate organism. In this scheme, the diversity of the microbial population affecting the test environment is first elucidated (Konopka 1998; Girvan 2003). Girvan (2003) used a polyphasic approach to characterize the effects of different soil types and land management practices had on the microbial ecosystem. The approach incorporated PCR-based techniques (16S rRNA) as well as metabol-ic fingerprinting using the Biolog System. For the latter, physiological profiling of microbial communities can be conducted (Weber 2007). Biolog Statistical tools such as multivariate or cluster analysis can be employed to discern key metabolic differ-ences between the surrogate and indig-enous microbial community (Mardia et al. 1979; Kaufman and Rousseeuw 2005; Gan et al. 2007). Donofrio et al. (2010a) compared the metabolic profiles of organ-isms indigenous to a laboratory deionized

Figure 1. The total market size of the residential water treatment market (analysis includes China, India, Mexico, Brazil and United States). The estimated growth rate from 2008-2015 for the five selected countries are as follows: China = 27.6%, India = 21.2%, Mexico = 12.2%, Brazil = 10.4% and United States = 5.8%. Data are provided by the marketing firm Frost and Sullivan.


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water system to which a B. diminuta strain had been exposed. Though use patterns did emerge, a sole carbon source to be used as a basis for selective isolation and enumeration was not discerned.

A limited number of investigations into rapid techniques for detection and enumeration of B. diminuta have been performed. Previous research has inves-tigated the applicability of using recom-binant molecular techniques to confer differential and selective properties to B. diminuta. These studies utilized direct electroporation or E. coli filter mating transformation procedures for the trans-fer of plasmids conferring expression of bacterial luciferase (pBSLLUX2) and fluo-rescent proteins (such as pBSLGFP1, pAc-GFP1 and pDsRed-Monomer) allowing for expression using general purpose growth media. Both procedures resulted in de-creased procedure times for B. diminuta enumeration compared to the traditional plating methods. Drawbacks to this lu-ciferase approach were the high cost for the luminescence detection equipment as well as the increased technician time and fatigue associated with microscopic enu-meration (Griffiths et al. 2000; Donofrio et al. 2012). The Tn5 transposon scheme has been used successfully in other bacte-rial strains (such as E. coli and Salmonella) to confer antibiotic resistance or introduce other foreign gene segments (de Lorenzo et al. 1990; Alexeyev et al. 1995; Goryshin et al. 2000). Donofrio et al. (2012) dem-onstrated that the transposon insertion method generated stable kanamycin-resis-tant clones of B. diminuta which could be isolated effectively from competing HPCs when grown on R2A agar amended with kanamycin. The recombinant B. diminuta strain was also found to maintain its abil-ity to be cultivated to 0.3 µm, thus satis-fying the size criteria for filter screening protocols.

Quantitative real time (q)PCR and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) are two additional molecular technologies that have been used successfully for the selective enumeration of numerous bac-terial species including those that could be found in drinking water such as Ral-

stonia spp., Salmonella spp., B. diminuta and Pseudomonas spp. (Sekiguchi et al. 1999; Weller et al. 2000; Penna et al. 2002; Yilmaz and Noguera 2004; Reynisson et al. 2008; Donofrio et al. 2010b; Saha et al. 2010). The qPCR assays typically sub-ject the sample to a DNA extraction and cleanup step (Nadkarni et al. 2002). This step is time consuming, though effec-tive in providing a DNA template free of PCR inhibitors. Whole cell (i.e., colony) PCR involves the direct amplification of target genes from a non-extracted DNA template (Sambrook et al. 2001; Fuchs and Podda 2004). The template DNA is released through cell lysis in the denatur-ing step of the PCR run. Whole cell PCR, coupled to gel electrophoresis, has been utilized as a quick qualitative screen for multiple gram-positive and gram-nega-tive bacteria (Naofuni et al. 2000; Sheu et al. 2000). This technique has proven ef-fective in detecting the genes of interest from suspensions containing cell concen-trations greater than 1 x 105 CFU (Sheu et al. 2000). The whole cell approach has also been successfully coupled to qPCR to provide quantitative measurements of cell density for organisms such as Pseudomo-nas sp. and B. diminuta (Saha et al. 2010; Donofrio et al. 2010b).

In addition to specific virulence fac-tors, the 16S rRNA gene has been the tar-get of many of these methods. Nadkarni et al. (2002) successfully demonstrated that qPCR can be used for estimating the bacterial load present in a water sample using 16S rRNA universal probes. Re-cently two housekeeping genes, gyrB and rpoD, have gained in popularity as the basis for the molecular quantification methods due to a number of similarities and additional advantageous traits they possess compared to the rRNA gene tar-get (Nies 2004). Additionally, Watanabe et al. (2001) have created the ICB database that is searchable for numerous organ-isms based on their gyrB sequences. Both gyrB and rpoD may have similar horizon-tal transmission rates to rRNAs (Yama-moto and Harayama 1998; Yamamoto et al. 2000). Both genes possess a single copy number, as opposed to 16S rRNA

which possesses a variable copy number (Yamamoto et al. 1998; Yamamoto et al. 2000; Kenzaka et al. 2005). These protein-coding genes have been demonstrated to have evolved at a quicker rate than rRNAs and have even displayed higher resolution than 16S rRNA. Because of these charac-teristics, the gyrB-based methods have demonstrated the ability to differenti-ate closely related bacterial strains (Ven-kateswaran et al. 1998; Hiroaki et al. 2000; Wantanabe et al 2001). Studies have also shown that phylogenetic comparisons us-ing gyrB and rpoD sequence may provide higher resolution than 16S rRNA. As a result, the design of primers and probes based on these genes may be more easily accomplished (Kenzaka et al. 2005). In addition, Han and Andrade (2005) have developed a PCR based methodology for identification of B. diminuta for clinical applications demonstrating the feasibility of this methodology. In this study, primers were designed around the housekeeping gene gyrB. The gyrB and rpoD genes were targeted by Donofrio et al. (2010b) for a qPCR and FISH approach to evaluate the concentration of B. diminuta in laboratory deionized water systems. These approach-es could be used to validate the removal efficiency of filtration-based treatment systems for drinking water systems.

SummaryThe availability of safe water for hu-

man consumption will always be an area of great importance for maintaining and preserving public health. Manufactur-ers of water treatment technologies must address the risk posed by established as well as emerging microbial pathogens. Thus the validation of such systems must include organisms that represent a broad spectrum of pathogens that are expected to threaten the water supply. Furthermore the methods employed for system valida-tion must be of adequate specificity and sensitivity to account for the infectious dose of the target pathogens. By integrat-ing molecular assays such as qPCR and FISH into the validation scheme, manu-facturers will have a more accurate and time efficient means of evaluating the ef-


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ficacy and performance of the water treat-ment technologies. Ultimately a stronger validation and certification protocol will result in heightened consumer confidence in this industry and an overall improve-ment in the quality and safety of the po-table water supply.

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About the authors

Robert S. Donofrio ([email protected]) is director of the Microbiology Depart-ment at NSF International. He received his MS in Environmental Microbiology from Duquesne University and his PhD in Biological Sciences from Michigan Techno-logical University. His research interests are in the areas of environmental microbiol-ogy, water microbiology and molecular microbiology.

Ratul Saha ([email protected]) is a research scientist in the Microbiology Division at NSF International in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received his MS and PhD in Biological Sciences from Michigan Technological University. His research interests are in the areas of environmental microbiology, bio-remediation and molecular microbiology.

Nabaneeta Saha ([email protected]) is a researcher at the Department of Zool-ogy, University of Calcutta. She received her M.Sc and PhD from the University of Calcutta. Her research interests are mi-

crobiology and ecology of vector borne diseases.

Rick Andrew ([email protected]) is the gen-eral manager for the Drinking Water Treat-ment Unit program at NSF International. He received his MBA from the University of Michigan.

Susan T. Bagley ([email protected]) is a professor of Environmental Microbiology at Michigan Technological University. Her research interests are in the areas of envi-ronmental microbiology, bioprocessing and bioremediation.

Contact information:Robert S. DonofrioNSF International789 Dixboro RoadAnn Arbor, MI, 48105 USAPh. 734-827-6894Fax [email protected]

news


According to a new report from the Na-tional Research Council, solid evidence exists for what needs to be done to im-prove undergraduate science education, but these findings have not yet widely implemented.

Results from discipline-based edu-cation research in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering have yielded insights into ways to improve un-dergraduate instruction. One example is that traditional lectures are not as suc-cessful at imparting information as are student-centered learning strategies, such as interactive learning activities, stu-dents working in groups, and incorpora-tion of authentic problems and questions into lessons.

Another barrier to learning is that students often misunderstand funda-mental concepts, such as topics that in-volve very large or very small scales of time and space. Additionally, students have difficulty understanding graphs, models, and simulations.

The report calls for universities and scientific societies to work to support fac-ulty efforts to use evidence-based teach-ing strategies, as well as train future fac-ulty who value effective teaching.

Read the report at www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13362.

Faculty members interested in par-ticipating in systemic changes to how the life sciences are taught in the post-sec-ondary educational environment are also

PPR

NRC report identifies opportunities for improving undergraduate education

encouraged to apply to become a Vision and Change Leadership Fellow -- a new joint initiative of the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. For more information about this pro-gram, please visit http://www.aibs.org/public-policy/news/initiative_launched_to_change_undergraduate_biology_ed-ucation.html#032203.

This article is reprinted with permission from the AIBS Public Policy Report, Volume 13, Issue 12, June 4, 2012. For information on the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), their public policy reports or Legislative Action Center, visit: www.aibs.org.

Don’t forget To sign up for SIMB’s E-Newsletter and to visit our blog! www.simhq.org/blog

Check out SIMB’s online information resources for current events and member news.

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The Obama Administration has an-nounced the Big Data Research and De-velopment Initiative to help accelerate the pace of discovery in science and en-gineering. The initiative aims to improve the tools needed to access, organize, store, and analyze large data sets. To launch the initiative, six federal depart-ments and agencies announced more than $200 million in new funding com-mitments. The National Science Founda-tion (NSF) announced seven new efforts it is launching in coordination with the Big Data Initiative. Among them is a new joint funding opportunity by NSF and the National Institutes of Health. The Core Techniques and Technologies for Advancing Big Data Science and Engi-neering is a cross agency solicitation that aims to advance the core technological means of managing, analyzing, visual-

izing, and extracting useful information from large, heterogeneous data sets. NSF also publicized a $1.2 million award that will bring together biologists and statis-ticians to develop network models and scalable algorithms and tools to advance our understanding of protein structures and biological pathways. The United States Geological Survey is performing state-of-the-art synthesis of long-term earth science data at the John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis. One example of recent work conducted at the center is a reconstruction of the Earth’s climate in the Pliocene era, which will be used in climate models to improve predictions of climate change. The Cen-ter is currently accepting applications for projects for next year. At an event to the launch the initiative, the President’s Science Advisor and Director of the Of-

fice of Science and Technology Policy Dr. John Holdren outlined the need for an “all hands on deck” effort by government, in-dustry, universities, and non-profits. The government cannot tackle big data on it own, stated Holdren. The White House released a summary of the Big Data Ini-tiative and the government programs that comprise it. The summary can be downloaded athttp://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/big_data_fact_sheet_final_1.pdf.

This article is reprinted with permission from the AIBS Public Policy Report, Volume 13, Issue 8, April 9, 2012. For information on the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), their public policy reports or Legislative Action Center, visit: www.aibs.org.

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Government announces ‘big data’ initiative

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Shengquan Group, a Shandong-based company specializing in furan resin and polymers, and Novozymes, a world lead-er in bioinnovation, today announced a partnership enabling Shengquan to start commercial-scale production of cellulos-ic ethanol for solvents in June 2012 using Novozymes’ technology.

“Shengquan is a global first mover in this industry, which is on the verge of materializing right now,” says Poul Ruben Andersen, Vice President for Bioenergy at Novozymes. “Shengquan has profound experience in chemical production and is a leading company in commercializing cellulosic ethanol. Novozymes is proud to join Shengquan in nurturing a green and circular bioeconomy which lessens the dependence on fossil fuel resources.”

Shengquan is a leading producer of furfural using xylose in corncobs, a monomer for resin production in the foundry industry. Using Novozymes enzymes, Shengquan will now convert corncob residues from furfural produc-tion into fermentable sugars and then into ethanol for solvents and other pur-poses. Shengquan’s cost model shows that its current production cost of cel-lulosic ethanol is cost-competitive with conventional ethanol as the feedstock is

a by-product of their current production.Novozymes is a leading enzymatic

solution provider in bioenergy. It part-ners with leading producers of cellulosic ethanol all over the world to commercial-ize this new technology. Biofuels boost the economy and create jobsA recent study by Bloomberg New Ener-gy Finance estimates that the advanced biofuel industry has the potential to cre-ate millions of jobs, economic growth and energy security worldwide.

Looking at China alone, the study shows that using less than 20% of the available agricultural residues China could produce more than 89 billion liters (23 million gallons) of biofuel, replacing 37% of its gasoline consumption by 2030. This would create 2.9 million jobs and re-duce CO2 emissions from gasoline-based transportation by 29%. The figures would be even higher if biomass from forestry residues, household waste and energy crops was included.

FIT TO PRINT

Shengquan and Novozymes in partnership to commercialize cellulosic ethanol The Chinese Shengquan Group will start commercial production of cellulosic ethanol for solvents and biochemicals in June 2012 utilizing enabling technology from Novozymes.

About NovozymesNovozymes is the world leader in bio-innovation. Together with customers across a broad array of industries, we cre-ate tomorrow’s industrial biosolutions, improving our customers’ business and the use of our planet’s resources.

With over 700 products used in 130 countries, Novozymes’ bioinnovations improve industrial performance and safeguard the world’s resources by offer-ing superior and sustainable solutions for tomorrow’s ever-changing marketplace. Read more at www.novozymes.com.

Media ContactsPaige DonnellyOffice: +1 919 494 3209Mobile: +1 919 218 [email protected]

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The Energy Department recently an-nounced a three-part plan to help imple-ment the Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Women’s Initiative aimed at attracting more women to clean energy careers and advancing their lead-ership positions. The new program, in partnership with the Massachusetts In-stitute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initia-tive, is designed to translate the goals of C3E into action in the United States.

The new components of the U.S. C3E action plan were announced at the Clean Energy Ministerial, a global forum of the energy ministers and leaders promoting clean energy technology and the transi-tion to a global clean energy economy.

FIT TO PRINT Energy Department boosts initiative for women in clean energy

Australia, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States each committed to under-take meaningful activities to advance women in clean energy. The U.S. C3E plan includes drawing together ambassadors, a cohort of distinguished senior profes-sionals sharing an interest in broadening the recruitment, retention, and advance-ment of highly qualified women in the field of clean energy. Also, the DOE C3E Awards program will recognize mid-ca-reer individuals who advance the lead-ership and accomplishments of women in clean energy by offering six awards, including a cash prize of $10,000. Finally,

an invitation-only symposium will be held on September 28, 2012, bringing together women and men to help build a strong national and international com-munity of professionals who support women in clean energy. The MIT Energy Initiative, in partnership with the Energy Department, will sponsor this event. See the Energy Department press release and the inaugural C3E Ambassadors.

This article is taken from EERE Network News (2 May 2012), a free weekly newsletter from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable En-ergy (EERE). To subscribe to Network News or to learn more about DOE’s EERE, visit www.eere.energy.gov/.

The Energy Department announced on April 6 up to $15 million is avail-able to demonstrate biomass-based oil supplements that can be blended with petroleum. Known as “bio-oils,” these precursors for completely renewable transportation fuels could be integrated into the oil refining processes that make conventional gasoline, diesel, and jet fu-els without requiring modifications to existing fuel distribution networks or en-gines. The goal is to help reduce U.S. use of foreign oil and diversify the nation’s

NEWSWORTHYEnergy Department offers up to $15 million for biomass fuel supplements

energy portfolio.The Energy Department expects to

fully fund between five and ten projects in fiscal year 2012 to produce bio-oil pro-totypes that can be tested in oil refiner-ies and used to develop comprehensive technical and economic analyses of how bio-oils could work. The prototype bio-oils will be produced from a range of feedstocks. Domestic industry, universi-ties, and laboratories are all eligible to ap-ply. The results will inform future efforts directed at advancing bio-oil technolo-

gies and bringing these renewable fuels to market. See the Energy Department press release and the funding opportu-nity announcement.

This article is taken from EERE Network News (11 April 2012), a free weekly newsletter from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). To subscribe to Network News or to learn more about DOE’s EERE, visit www.eere.energy.gov/.

news


The Obama Administration has released its National Bioeconomy Blueprint. De-scribing the ‘bioeconomy’ as an economy “based on the use of research and inno-vation in the biological sciences to create economic activity and public benefit,” the White House emphasized its “tremen-dous potential for growth” and the many “societal benefits it offers.” The Bioecon-omy Blueprint charts recent advances in health, energy, agriculture, and environ-mental studies. Individualized medical treatments, biomaterials, plant-derived biofuels, disease-resistant crops with higher yields, and microorganisms that break down ecosystem contamination are fledgling developments derived from the bioeconomy. To ensure that the bio-economy continues to flourish domesti-cally, the Blueprint highlights five strate-gic objectives that need to be met. The first objective is to invest in research and development (R&D) in areas that are foundational for the future bioeconomy.” The report notes that “a robust biological/biomedical R&D enterprise, backed by government, foundations, and for profit investments, is necessary to produce the new knowledge, ideas, and foundational technologies required to develop prod-ucts and services that support businesses and industries and help create jobs.” To ensure success of this objective, federal agencies will need to select R&D invest-ments strategically for maximum effect, implement a cross-disciplinary approach to research problems, and create funding procedures that are more flexible. More needs to be done to help facilitate the

transition of bioinventions from research labs to commercial markets. The report states the Administration’s commitment to commercializing research develop-ments and fostering entrepreneurs who are rooted in the bioeconomy. The gov-ernment will also strive to “develop and reform regulations to reduce barriers, increase the speed and predictability of regulatory processes, and reduce costs while protecting human and environ-mental health.” The Administration ac-knowledges that logical, transparent regulations are preferable to antiquated, restrictive rules that no longer reflect the current environment. Federal agencies should ensure that their regulations are “cost-effective, evidence-based…[and] compatible with economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness.” Student training programs will need to be up-dated to ensure that Americans gain the necessary skills to work in the bioecono-my. This could involve restructuring train-ing programs and realigning academic institution incentives. Lastly, the report calls for the identification and support of public-private partnerships and precom-petitive collaborations. The report calls for academic institutions and private companies to join with the federal gov-ernment “to invent, deploy, and scale the cutting-edge technologies that will cre-ate new jobs, spark new breakthroughs, and reinvigorate America today and in the future.” Potential areas of collabora-tion include biofuels, food security, and biotheaputics. The Bioeconomy Blue-print is replete with examples of federal

projects already underway that contrib-ute to the bioeconomy. For the full re-port, visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/26/national-bioeconomy-blueprint-released.

This article is reprinted with permission from the AIBS Public Policy Report, Volume 13, Issue 10, May 7, 2012. For information on the American In-stitute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), their public policy reports or Legislative Action Center, visit: www.aibs.org.

NEWSWORTHYNational Bioeconomy Blueprint issued by Obama administration

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A classically trained microbiologist, Carol Litchfield is best known for her research on halophiles. Carol loved microbiology and unlike many who follow the winds of the profession, she focused on those mi-croorganisms that intrigued her, adapting techniques and methods to the analysis of her beloved halophiles, employing both classical and molecular tools to probe the mysteries of such activities as the pigment changes in isolated colonies of halophilic Archea growing on traditional agar sup-plemented with various metals. She mar-veled at the beauty of the microbial world, happily delving into long discussions of the microbiology of honeybees, biode-

Carol Darline LitchfieldBy Russell H. Vreeland, Rita Colwell, and Deborah Chadick

gradable plastics, anti-fouling boat paints, remote microbial detection methods, and new teaching systems, always encouraging her students and challenging colleagues involved in similar research interests. Carol would mull over data and invari-ably come up with new ideas to explain the phenomenon under observation. Her students always had a new experiment to try and a new creative challenge to follow.

Carol and her husband, Carter Litch-field never had children of their own; her graduate students were her children, and she never let them down. She loved and supported them all, no matter where they were, what they did, or how their lives pro-gressed. If students in the laboratory were not able to travel to their home for the holidays, they were invited to Carol and Carter’s home and immediately were fam-ily. The meals were legendary. Carol was the consummate mentor who demanded precision in all experiments but was al-ways ready to commiserate when a key experiment was less than successful. Car-ol never allowed radios in the laboratory (but knew they were in the desks) and she provided the box to hold volleyball equip-ment, naming it the” graduate student toy box”. She would give a stern lecture about the impropriety of hanging laundry in her office (the door to which was always open) but, with a twinkle in her eye, brag to other faculty about the work ethic of her students… When two of her graduate stu-dents cooked mussels in a newly installed autoclave, they were reprimanded with a lecture on safety, but later in the week asked how the seafood tasted. Throughout

the more than 40 years of her professional career, Carol stayed in communication with all of her students, simply because she cared about them.

Carol was an accomplished SCUBA diver and professional in underwater pho-tography, both of which she undertook with great relish. She went diving at every opportunity. Her Christmas cards always featured one of her magnificent images. She also loved saline environments of the world. Her research, in addition to her favorite halophiles, included the biota of all saline lakes and the history of salt. A constantly sought after reviewer of books on salt by publishers, Carol maintained a collection of salt crystals collected from every salty environment she visited. She collected monographs and journal articles on every aspect of salt, from its mythology to the odd equipment employed to harvest salt throughout the ages.

No tribute to Carol could be complete without mention of Carol’s obsession with baseball and the Cincinnati Reds. If they were playing in town, Carol went to the game, if Reds were playing three cit-ies away, Carol went to the game. If you were her graduate student, YOU went to the game! Perhaps least known about Carol Litchfield is that she, herself, played baseball in the famous women’s baseball league before returning to school to ob-tain her doctorate in microbiology.

Carol was dedicated to the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnol-ogy (SIMB). She proudly served the Soci-ety for more than 30 years, as education coordinator, oard member, chair of ad hoc

Carol was presented the 2012 Porter Award in March 2012.

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committees, session organizer, speaker, poster judge, and president. Carol volun-teered in the Society offices and was an avid recruiter to SIMB membership and participation in the Society activities. Just before her death, the Society presented Carol with the 2012 Porter Award for her many contributions over the years. Carol Litchfield’s dedication to all students will be perpetually remembered by the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotech-nology, which has named its six best stu-dent presentations the “Carol D. Litchfield Best Student Presentation Awards”. These awards are presented by SIMB at each year at its annual meeting.

In addition to her commitment to training the next generation of scientists and her great pride in their successes, Car-ol was a person of great sensitivity to the plight of the less fortunate. She dedicated her 75th and final birthday party to sup-port for the Arlington VA Food Bank and Shelter. It is appropriate to close this trib-ute to Carol D. Litchfield with the words of some of those whose lives she touched.

Carol was a driving force for our So-ciety (SIMB) for many, many years. Her service to the Society in terms of elective office, committee chair, devoted colleague and friend, provided us with a sense of bal-ance, good judgment, leadership and won-derful science.

~ Dr. Jeff Schwartz

Many of you knew Carol because of her involvement in SIMB, others of us knew her for her many scientific accom-plishments in environmental microbiology and a few of us knew her as a great men-tor. Carol was ahead of her time when it came to understanding the role of microbes in the environment before PCR. She was a tough professor at Rutgers who taught her

students a key ingredient for success: think outside the box and don’t believe every-thing you read in the literature. She will be missed but fondly remembered as a leader in her time – a scientist’s scientist on every front.

~ Dr. Jennie Hunter-Cevera

Carol was a wonderful guide and mentor. I will always remember her for clear directions, uncompromising support, and her joyful, wise humor.

~ Dr. Tom Jeffries

My friendship with Carol began some 40 plus years ago when I was a new gradu-ate student and she was a new associate professor at Rutgers. Although I was not her student, her guidance, encouragement and scientific expertise helped me to get my degree. She was tough, but fair.

~ Dr. Paul Cino

To quote Carol, “I have to step out of the stadium for a minute. Make sure you keep the score book correct.”

~ Dr. Elisabeth Elder

Carol was a special person in many of our lives. She inspired us in science and led us by her example. Forty years ago she helped start my career in microbiology, and she never stopped being my mentor. She was a scientist and a compassionate hu-man being without equal.

~ Dr. Joe Zindulis

Thus, we say farewell to someone whom many of us loved for her friendship, her keen insight, and for just being Carol, a kind and caring human being. Albert Einstein said there are two ways to lead your life, one in which nothing is a mira-cle, the other in which everything is. Carol

Darline Litchfield lived her life so that, for her, everything was indeed a miracle.

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Ronald Bentley, Professor Emeritus of Biological Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh, died on June 6, 2011, of com-plications of kidney failure. Recipient of the 2002 Society for Industrial Microbi-ology Waksman Outstanding Educator Award, “Doc B” had a long and illustrious career in biochemistry and industrial mi-crobiology. Along with being a world class biochemist, Ronald was also a world class teacher and mentor; husband and father; plus friend and collaborator. During a ca-reer that started during the “golden era” of antibiotics research, he published over 200 papers and reviews. In 1979, he received the Pittsburgh Award of the American Chemical Society.

Ronald was born and raised in Derby, England. He was the only child of a tra-ditional mother and a father who worked at the Rolls Royce factory in Derby. (Later, Ronald’s son Peter pointed out that his grandfather, Douglas, had been “a Bent-ley amongst the Rolls Royces.”) Early on, one of Ronald’s teachers recognized his academic potential and guided him to a scholarship for Derby Technological College, where he worked as “a lab boy” (glass washer) to help support his stud-ies. A minor health problem diverted him from military conscription during World War II. Instead he served the war effort by working on the penicillin proj-ect. His doctoral studies at Imperial Col-lege of Science and Technology, University of London, focused on the elucidation of the structure of penicillin, as well as the attempted chemical synthesis of the new antibiotic. After the war, when it became

apparent that microbes were more effi-cient at producing the b-lactam structure of penicillin than were chemists, Ronald “converted” to biochemistry. He spent the rest of his distinguished career unraveling the ways in which bacteria and fungi syn-thesize natural products.

In 1946, Doc B was awarded a Com-monwealth Fund Fellowship to study at the Department of Biochemistry, College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) at Co-lumbia University. He crossed the Atlantic on a tramp steamer. Because one purpose of the fellowship was to foster understand-ing of the United States, he took a long cross country tour to California before settling in New York. On the return from the west coast, he made a special effort to stop in Peoria, Illinois, in hopes of see-ing firsthand what was going on with the American penicillin effort. He was denied entry to the Agricultural Research Labo-ratory facility in Peoria because he was a “foreign alien.” He remembered the disap-pointment – and the slight – for the rest of his life.

At Columbia, Ronald worked with David Rittenberg, a major figure in the ap-plication of the isotopic tracer technique for the study of biochemical reactions. Rittenberg was a physical chemist who had pioneered the application of deute-rium to trace the biochemical transforma-tion of various cellular components dur-ing metabolism. In 1944, Rittenberg and Block were the first to demonstrate a role for acetate in the biosynthesis of fatty ac-ids. Among other things, Rittenberg was an excellent glass blower, a skill Ronald

also picked up, along with an early mas-tery of the then-emerging field of mass spectrometry.

While at Columbia, Doc B met his future wife, Marian Blanchard, also a chemist. (Marian was Severa Ochoa’s first graduate student at New York University, but that is another story). They married in 1948 and soon moved to London, Eng-land, where Ronald worked as a member of the scientific staff at the National In-stitute for Medical Research. It was dur-ing this time that he was the first to use 18O in biochemistry for a study of the mechanism of acetyl phosphate hydrolysis (Bentley 1948). In 1953, in response to an invitation to join the faculty at the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh, the Bentleys moved back to the United States. Ronald stayed at the University of Pittsburgh for the rest of his academic career, becoming Profes-sor of Biochemistry in 1960, and serving as chair from 1972-1976. When Biochem-istry merged with Biology and Biophysics to become the Department of Biological Sciences, he served as assistant chair from 1976-1977. Nepotism rules of the time pre-vented Marian from having her own fac-ulty appointment so for a number of years she stayed at home caring for their three children, Allison, Colin, and Peter. When the children were grown, she returned to academe, working as a coordinator for the freshman biology program at the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh. During the years the children were young, the family took many camping and hiking vacations. Both of Ronald’s sons grew up learning a lot of natural history and loving the outdoors.

Ronald Bentley: from early antibiotics to the “omics” eraBy Joan W. Bennett, Jill Campbell, and Jan Popp

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Throughout his career, Ronald knew that microbes excelled at biochemistry and tried to probe the secrets of how bac-teria and fungi conduct their elegant syn-theses. Because his formal education had been in chemistry, in 1960 he participated in the renowned ten-week intensive gen-eral microbiology course, taught by C. B. van Niel at the Hopkins Marine Biologi-cal Station of Stanford University. Both before and after taking this course, much of his research focused on the biosynthe-sis of secondary metabolites, especially aromatic compounds such as tropolones, quinones, menaquinones, and Coenzyme Q. He also had a long interest in both kojic acid and geosmin. After he “retired,” he wrote almost fifty reviews and biographi-cal essays that have enriched our under-standing of the history and semantics of secondary metabolism research.

Doc B had a gift for seeing in three dimensions and always noticed when pho-tographic negatives had been printed in a transposed configuration. Not surpris-ingly, he was drawn to the study of chiral-ity of organic compounds. With his col-leagues William Wells, Masami Makita, and Charles C. Sweeley he used gas chro-matographic data to study the trimethylsi-lyl derivatives of a large number of carbo-hydrates, publishing a paper that became one of the 100 most cited papers in the sci-ences in the 1960s (Sweeley et al. 1963). In 1969 and 1970, he published two definitive volumes on this subject: Molecular Asym-metry in Biology (Academic Press).

Jan Popp, his last graduate student, started her studies in 1981 just as he had been awarded his 25th consecutive year of National Institutes of Health funding. She remembers how he came into the lab and popped open a beer to celebrate. (That was in the “good old days” before health and safety regulations created the sharp line between where one conducts laboratory and social life.) Because she had a less-than-robust background in bio-chemistry, he tutored her weekly, chapter by chapter, through the entire Lehninger biochemistry textbook. His benevolence was combined with a strong sense of get-

ting things right. He was very detail ori-ented. She remembers how “he could pick out the tiniest little error in whatever we did.” As an example, she described a social event during her graduate school years. “I baked a sheet cake and decorated it with a structure of cholesterol and a structure of vitamin K. Doc B came up and said, ‘Very nice, except you missed one of the double bonds.’” It was characteristic of Ronald that he couldn’t resist the impulse to correct a chemical structure, even when it was part of a whimsical cake decoration. He was also an engaging lecturer with a quirky sense of humor. For example, when Doc B taught about Michaelis-Menton ki-netics, he used the analogy of a werewolf, likening the wolf ’s mouth to the active site of the enzyme and the number of students in the room to the substrate concentration.

Ronald Bentley was an extraordinari-ly good editor, taking enormous time with his students’ papers and any manuscripts on which he agreed to serve as a reviewer. These skills were on strong display when he was one of the co-editors of the defini-tive Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology published by Oxford University Press in 1997 and revised in 2000. He believed that corrections should be made before a book or article was pub-lished and when he found examples of published works that had not bothered to do the necessary painstaking work, he could be withering. He was invited to write a review of Biochemistry for Dum-mies and found so many errors in chemi-cal structures and inaccuracies in the text that he concluded that the book should be called Biochemistry by Dummies.

Doc B was particularly fascinated with fungi. When he walked in the woods – or the golf course near his home – he kept his eye out for puff balls. He enjoyed making mushroom quiche and mush-room stuffed crepes, frequently with fungi he had collected himself. Among his other specialties were a cold asparagus soup, sa-vory cheese straws, and English fruitcake heavily laced with spirits. He was also a good baker, making lemon cake and a va-riety of other English cakes and sweets for

special occasions. Doc B viewed some of his cooking as just another form of organic chemistry; when he baked yeast breads he viewed it as another form of biochemistry.

His son Colin joined the Navy in 1975 and was stationed in Charleston. He liked it so much that he stayed there af-ter he was discharged, finished school at the College of Charleston, and took a job with the College. Peter moved to Montana in 1985. Also during those years, Doc B’s wife Marion died and his daughter Allison also passed away tragically of complica-tions associated with her first pregnancy. Simultaneously adjusting to grief, retire-ment, and an “empty nest” in 1995 Doc B adopted a lively Sheltie dog, naming her Bronwyn after a character in a novel by Anthony Trollope, his favorite novel-ist. On their morning rambles on the golf course as Ronald hunted for puff balls, Bronwyn occasionally would try to herd golf carts. He made annual visits to see Peter in Montana until 2008; sometimes Colin was able to join them for a family reunion. But most of the time, Ronald had to adjust to life as a widower. When one of his neighbors, Deidre Watkins, became a widow, they continued a tradition of go-ing to concerts together as they once had done when their spouses were both alive. He also was attentive to Jill Campbell and her sons, Neil and Greg. During the Campbell family visits there was always an intriguing puzzle or a “magic” trick to amuse them and incorporate a little sci-ence lesson. Further, Doc B continued his tradition of cultivating close personal re-lationships with many of his students and colleagues, regularly opening his home for dinner parties and house guests. Jan Popp appointed Doc B as honorary grandfather to her daughters Emmy and Rosie. As he got older, their annual visits over the 4th of July weekend became one of the high points of his year, preceded by a flurry of meal planning and feigned concern about whether he could cope their high activity level. He devised special science and cook-ing lessons for the girls to interest them in science. These included crystal growing along with magnets and iron filings and

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a “drinking bird.” He was a teacher to the core: it didn’t matter whether the student was in elementary school or graduate school.

Ronald had seemed in robust health, cultivating his interest in the history of bio-chemistry and microbiology, and writing a number of provocative review articles. Joan W. Bennett had the privilege of collaborat-ing with him on many of these essays. In 2009 he unexpectedly had to go on dialy-sis. At first he seemed to be doing well with plans to continue his scholarly research. Then a contaminated catheter led to a se-ries of massive microbial infections, com-plicated by a bad fall. After many hospital-izations and rehabilitations, Colin moved his father to South Carolina in November 2010. Doc B’s health remained fragile and he died on June 6, 2011.

On July 9, 2011, his sons Colin and Peter, along with their respective wives, Ann and Tracy, hosted a reception at a hotel near Pittsburg in their late father’s honor. A large circle of family, friends, fellow folk dancers, academic associates, collaborators, and former students to-gether joined to remember this remark-able scientist whose career had spanned over sixty years. Various guests spoke about Ronald Bentley’s many scientific ac-complishments, his eccentricities (he had particular loathing of pink flamingos), his love of family, and his love of life -- from biochemistry to hiking, and including good company and good scotch. Years before, Ronald had left instructions to his sons that when he died, he wanted them to invite people over to their house, have the guests finish the food in the pantry and all the liquor in the cabinet. Unfortunately because of Ronald’s long illness, the house already had been sold. At the hotel recep-tion, his son Peter gave a brief talk and ex-plained, “We threw away the food and we already have drunk the booze. Neverthe-less, this is meant to be my dad’s last cock-tail party.” Peter ended all the scientific testimonials by saying, “I knew him as just dad. He was pretty swell and he went out as a trooper.”

ReferencesBentley, R. 1948. A new synthesis of acetyl dihydro-

gen phosphate. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 70:2183-2185.

Sweeley, C. C., Bentley, R. Makita, M. and Wells, W. W. 1963. Gas-liquid chromatography of trimeth-ylsilyl derivatives of sugars and related sub-stances. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 85: 2497-2507

Bentley R. 1969. Molecular Asymmetry in Biology. Vol I. Academic Press, NY.

Bentley R. 1970. Molecular Asymmetry in Biology. Vol II. Academic Press, NY.

Smith, A. D, Datta, S. P. Smith, G. H. Campbell, P. N. Bentley, R, and McKenzie, H. A., eds. Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 1997 and 2000. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Do you judge Science Fairs?

SIMB offers science fair certificatesMost Science Fairs have a

section on microbiology and/or molecular biology, and many SIMB members assist local schools by judging in those categories. The SIMB Board of Directors

authorized the Education Committee to provide certificates to be pre-sented to students in Science Fairs. he criteria for receipt of a certificate are that an SIMB Member must be judging in the fair. Certificates will be available to the first, second, and third place winners if there are a sufficient number of entries.

Email to the Education Committee the names, addresses of the schools, and judges’ names and addresses, and we will send the cer-tificates already filled out for presentation. This will give the judges a second opportunity to interact with the students and encourage more interest in microbiology.

CONTACT Michael [email protected]

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Micah I. Krichevsky, PhD, Chairman, Bionomics International, has been hon-ored with the prestigious 2012 Roche Di-agnostics Alice C. Evans Award from the American Society for Microbiology. This award, established by ASM’s Committee on the Status of Women in Microbiol-ogy, recognizes contributions toward the full participation and advancement of women in microbiology. Krichevsky “has demonstrated his commitment to the full participation and advancement of wom-en in science and microbiology through his service on and his contributing work with the ASM Committee on the Status of Women in Microbiology (CSWM) and by his unending willingness to encourage, advise, mentor, and support individual women in their careers in microbiology,” explains Candace McManus, formerly of the FDA. Krichevsky was nominated by Sara Rothman, Walter Reed Army Insti-tute of Research.

Krichevsky received his undergradu-ate degree at the University of Connecti-cut, Storrs, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in Dairy Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana. His research career at the National Institutes of Health, primar-ily at the National Institute for Dental Re-search, spanned 34 years, serving as a Sec-tion Chief from 1967 until his retirement in 1992. He then established Bionom-ics International, a non-governmental organization.

Krichevsky has worked in several ar-eas of microbiological research as well as parallel activities in human rights in sci-ence. His major research interests have

The American Society for Microbiology honors Micah I. Krichevsky

included computer and instrument meth-odology, and the growth, physiology, and metabolism of bacteria of the oral cavity. He developed the first real-time computer analysis of chromatographic data, com-puter algorithms for double-label isotope composition calculations, and algorithms for real-time analysis of gas chromato-graph/mass spectrometers. He also devel-oped a standardized method for computer coding of microbiological phenotypic and macromolecular data for data entry, man-agement, analysis and communication—the RKC Code. While computer indepen-dent, the Code can be coupled with the Microbial Information System (Micro-IS). The Micro-IS is constantly enhanced by taking advantage of modern computer programming techniques. The combi-nation of the RKC Code and Micro-IS is used in various developed and developing countries.

Using his experience in acquir-ing and analyzing microbiological data, Krichevsky has developed extensive col-laborations worldwide. He has organized and taught workshops and designed data banks for UNEP, UNIDO, ASM, SIMB, NSF, and ICSU/CODATA.

“His sterling service on the NIH’s Equal Employment Opportunity Com-mittee earned him the Award for Out-standing Contributions to the Equal Employment Opportunity Program of the NIH in 1976,” described Rothman. “During his service on that committee he advised and assisted numerous women in their efforts to achieve appropriate recog-nition and opportunities in an often hos-

tile environment.” “Krichevsky worked tirelessly on as many as eight cases in one year to help female scientists facing illegal discrimination and unfair treatment in the nation’s foremost medical research in-stitutes,” added Anne Morris Hooke, Mi-ami University. He continues his activities in human rights in science with an em-phasis on international activities. He has also served as a member of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women for the American Society of Biological Chem-ists. Currently he is an active consulting participant in CSWM programs.

Krichevsky continues to advise and support persons who feel they have been denied equal opportunity in the work-place. “I hold him in the highest esteem and believe he is a more than worthy can-didate for this prestigious award,” sum-marizes Hooke.

To view Dr. Krichevsky’s biosketch, please visit: www.asm.org/index.php/awards-grants/current-roche-diagnostics-alice-c-evans-award-laureate.html.

The Roche Diagnostics Alice C. Ev-ans Award will be presented during the 112th General Meeting of the ASM, June 16 - 19, 2012 in San Francisco, California. ASM is the world’s oldest and largest life science organization and has more than 40,000 members worldwide. ASM’s mis-sion is to advance the microbiological sciences and promote the use of scientific knowledge for improved health and eco-nomic and environmental well-being.

members


Emeritus membership

Retiring members of SIMB who have been members for at least 20 years can apply for emeritus membership in the Society. Emeritus members can choose to receive SIMB News at no charge for the year or both SIMB News and JIMB for just $35 per year.

Requests for emeritus status are reviewed by the board of directors at spring, summer and fall board meetings.

To check your join date, please contact SIMB at 703.691.3357 ext. 23 or [email protected].

Local Section ContactsNew England Sanjay [email protected]

New Jersey Anthony [email protected]

Rocky Mountain Mary [email protected]

Southern Great Lakes Dr. James (Jim) Mitchell [email protected]

Robert Schwartz [email protected]

Congratulations to the winners of the 2012 SIMB election for board of directors. The new board members will begin their terms of office with the annual business meeting to be held Wednesday, August 15, during the SIMB Annual Meeting at the Washington Hilton, Washington, DC.

President-ElectLeonard Katz, Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, University of California

SecretaryRobert Donofrio, NSF International

DirectorJonathan Mielenz, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Many thanks to all of the nominees for their support of SIMB.

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It was truly an international meeting with 35% of the attendees from Austra-lia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chili, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germa-ny, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Portugal, South Arica, Spain, Sweden Switzerland, Taiwan, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Uruguay. Outside the U.S., the greatest delegation came from Brazil and Korea with about 45 attendees from each coun-try. The total attendance for the meeting was 751.

This meeting has always been a meeting attended by graduate students and their advisors, and this year was no exception. 155 students attended and gave excellent presentations for a captive audience. One of the highlights of the conference was the two poster sessions that were held on Monday and Tuesday evening, when students presented their work on 158 posters.

On Wednesday evening, a special topic titled US & International Bioenergy Research Center Updates was held. This session was well attended and highlight-

ed some of the research goal and process together with management principles and coordination efforts of bioenergy centers around the world. Centers from United Kingdom, Japan, and the U.S. were among the presenters.

The organizers of the meeting hon-ored two individuals with awards. Dr. Jens Nielsen from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden received the Charles D. Scott Award and Mr. John Fer-rell of the U.S. Department of Energy re-ceived the Raphael Katzen Award. The CD Scott Award recognizes individuals who have made distinguished contributions to enable and further the use of biotech-nology to produce fuels and chemicals, and the Katzen Award recognizes indi-viduals who have made distinguished contributions to enable and further the deployment and commercialization of biotechnology to produce fuels and chemicals. Dr. Nielsen is a well-respect-ed research professor and entrepreneur who have published over 330 research papers and is an inventor of more than 50 patents. Mr. Farrell has been actively

involved with the advancement of feed-stock supply system and energy crop de-velopment and as well as a champion of the Billion Ton Study, which provides the foundation for recent and future United States bioenergy assessments.

Two student awards to the best posters were also handed out. Christine Roche from University of California at Berkley won for her work on engineer-ing filamentous fungi for increased pro-duction of lignocellulose-derived lipids. Keith Gourlay from University of British Columbia won for his work on the poten-tial application of substructure-specific carbohydrate binding molecules to track changes in cellulose surface morphology during the initial stages of hydrolysis.

Special topic summaryA special topics session was held

at the 34th Symposium on Biotechnol-ogy for Fuels and Chemicals, organized by Society for Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology, was held April 30- May 3, 2012, in New Orleans, LA. This year’s topic was titled US & International Bioenergy

34th SBFC Meeting SummaryThe 34th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, organized by the Soci-ety for Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology, was held April 30- May 3, 2012, in New Orleans, LA. The conference brought together students, researchers, and representatives from industry, academia, and governments. Over 700 attendees heard presentations in the topics of Plant Science & Technology; Biomass Supply & Sustainability; Biomass Physi-cochemical Analysis; Biomass Recalcitrance; Pretreatment & Fractionation; Enzyme, Bac-terial, Yeast & Fungal, and Algae Science & Technology; Biobased Chemicals; Emerging Biofuels; Bioprocessing & Separations Technology; and Biofuels & Biorefinery Economics & Commercialization. This year included three parallel tracks, comprising of 108 oral presen-tations. Three additional evening sessions were also offered with either poster exhibition or special discussion topics.

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For much of last week I – along with more than 700 other delegates – attended the 34th eponymous Symposium on Bio-technology for Fuels and Chemicals in the USA. The attendees were fairly evenly split between academia, industry, stu-dents and ‘Government’, while the coun-try mix was interesting, with non-US rep-resentation mainly (in order) from Brazil, Korea, Canada, Denmark and Sweden, and with just seven UK representatives.

In a very interesting plenary, Da-vid Glassner from Gevo described some large-scale processes for producing lac-tate (hence polylactate) and isobutanol in yeast. A 22 million gallon per year facil-ity is being constructed! Many other talks followed a similar pattern, as microbial strain engineering based on systems bi-ology modelling, pathway and enzyme engineering and ’omics’ were used to cre-ate strains with excellent potential and prowess, many of which were progress-ing to large-scale trials. Examples in-cluded 1,4-butanediol from Genomatica (and see the paper), 2,5-furan dicarbox-ylic acid at Bird Engineering (and paper) and a variety of long-chain alkanes, es-ters and fatty alcohols from LS9 (and rep-resentative paper). What is clear is that substantial progress is being made in de-veloping processes for industrial biotech-nology, and that they can only become more economic as the feedstocks for the

petrochemical processes that might oth-erwise be used to make them increase in cost. One speaker pointed out that dur-ing one single 3h symposium session the world would use 12 million barrels of oil, or 4 supertankers’ worth!

Novel (and high-throughput) ana-lytical procedures also featured heavily in the presentations, as did genome-scale modelling (not least of algae and cyano-bacteria), while I also enjoyed a presen-tation on computational enzyme design by Andre Zanghellini, first author of this paper and now at Arzeda.

A particularly interesting session in-volved a description (and general discus-sion) of six of the major bioenergy centres that have been set up, starting with an excellent presentation of our own BSBEC by Angela Karp. The other centres were the Biomass Technology Research Centre of AIST at Higashi (presented by Kinya Sakanishi), the DOE BioEnergy Science Centre at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Paul Gilna), the Joint BioEnergy Institute (Blake Simmons), the Great Lakes Bioen-ergy Research Centre (Tim Donohue) and the Energy Biosciences Institute (Chris Somerville). Overall a very impressive list, and huge advances have been made in a very short time. I was very pleased to see that the UK programme could very much hold its own, despite its comparatively small size. There were far too many high-

Biotechnology for fuels and chemicalsBy Douglas Kell

Research Center Updates. This topic was first introduced in 2010 and during the last two years bioenergy research cen-ters and institutes continue to focus on developing fundamental knowledge and applied technology for production of biomass-derived fuels and chemicals. In-vited speakers from the three U.S. Depart-ment of Energy bioenergy research cen-ters, the privately funded Joint BioEnergy Institute, the United Kingdom Biotech-nology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Sustainable Bioenergy Center, and Japan Biomass Technology Research Center enlightened the audience of their present research goals and progress over the last couple years. Dr. Angela Karp (U.K.), Dr. Kinya Sakanishi (Japan), Dr. Paul Gilna (BioEnergy Science Center), Dr. Blake Simmons (Joint BioEnergy Insti-tute), Dr. Timothy Donohue (Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center), and Dr. Chris Somerville (Energy Biosciences Institute) also participated in a panel discussion to discuss the future fate of bioenergy and coordinating efforts.

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lights to mention, but a couple that I did enjoy were the use of base rather than acid to improve pre-treatment (more interesting and important than it may sound!) and a study of plants for unusual lignin linkages; Angelica sinsensis has some 3% of ester rather than ether link-ages, that are considerably easier to hy-drolyse and this is under genetic control – so there are some obviously useful con-sequences. I suspect that a wider survey of the plant kingdom, especially in terms of understanding the constituents of plants already used in economic botany and thus with at least some useful agro-nomic performance, would turn up other important and relevant genes.

I also noted the press release on the master plan for the Norwich Research Park, and (given my interests in compu-tational approaches to complex systems) enjoyed a paper from Uri Alon’s group on multiobjective optimisation and trade-offs, an excellent summary of the neces-sity for (and benefits of ) making source code available for validating scientific conclusions, and a blog post on crowd sourcing in bioinformatics.

BBSRC’s Business Interaction Unit has recently been investing some time in attracting industrialists from European companies to serve on its peer review committee Pool of Experts. The aim is to increase industry representation in our grant assessment process and to help with industrial relevance considerations. I encourage industrialists to consider ap-plying for this role through our conven-tional Appointments Board process. For an informal discussion about the role, the BBSRC contact is Rachel Spencer.

Finally, as Minister for Universi-ties and Science David Willetts said in a speech last week, “If the rest of Britain performed like our research and publish-ing community, we would have rather

fewer economic problems to tackle”.

Kell, D. B. (2012). Scientific discovery as a combina-torial optimisation problem: how best to navi-gate the landscape of possible experiments? Bioessays 34, 236-244. Full free text

Koopman, F., Wierckx, N., de Winde, J. H. & Ruijs-senaars, H. J. (2010).n Efficient whole-cell bio-transformation of 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural into FDCA, 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid. Biore-source Technol 101, 6291-6

Morin, A., Urban, J., Adams, P. D., Foster, I., Sali, A., Baker, D. & Sliz, P. (2012). Shining light into black boxes. Science 336, 159-60

Schirmer, A., Rude, M. A., Li, X., Popova, E. & del Cardayre, S. B. (2010). Microbial biosynthesis of alkanes. Science 329, 559-62

Shoval, O., Sheftel, H., Shinar, G., Hart, Y., Ramote, O., Mayo, A., Dekel, E., Kavanagh, K. & Alon, U. (2012). Evolutionary trade-offs, Pareto optimal-ity, and the geometry of phenotype space. Sci-ence, online

Yim, H. et mult al.(2011). Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for direct production of 1,4-bu-tanediol. Nat Chem Biol 7, 445-452

Zanghellini, A., Jiang, L., Wollacott, A. M., Cheng, G., Meiler, J., Althoff, E. A., Rothlisberger, D. & Baker, D. (2006). New algorithms and an in silico benchmark for computational enzyme design. Protein Sci 15, 2785-94. Full free text

This article has been reproduced from “Profes-sor Douglas Kell’s blog: news from our Chief Executive” with permission from BBSRC. Find Kell’s blog entry at: http://blogs.bbsrc.ac.uk/in-dex.php/2012/05/biotechnology-for-fuels-and-chemicals/.

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2012 SIMB Annual MeetingAugust 12 - 16, 2012 (Sunday-Thursday)Hilton WashingtonWashington, DC

Web site: www.simhq.org/annual

Contact SIMB

SponsorshipChristine [email protected]

Sponsorship opportunities avail-able. In addition to inclusion in conference publicity, sponsors may also receive complimentary registrations or exhibit space. See sponsorship form online.

ExhibitsNancy [email protected] exhibit prospectus online.

AdvertisingSuzannah [email protected]

Advertising opportunities avail-able in the meeting program.

Registration and housingRegistration and housing are open. We look forward to seeing everyone in Washington, DC this summer. Washington is a wonderful city for exploring on foot or use our Metro system; Smithsonian museums are FREE; the Washington Hilton, is adjacent to Embassy Row, the famous neighborhoods of DuPont Circle, Adams Morgan, and Woodley as well as close to the National Zoo.

Call for abstractsNEW THIS YEAR - Submit your contributed abstract to be considered for an oral presen-tation in the core area presentations (www.simhq.org/annual). For information, contact Steve Van Dien, 2012 SIMB Annual Meeting Program Chair, [email protected].

Students! Submit your abstract now. SIMB will again provide Student Travel Awards for best stu-dent oral or poster presentations. Students will be judged onsite with six prizes of $500 each awarded, one in each of the poster session core areas and one in the student oral presentation session. For more information contact Rob Donofrio, [email protected] or Laura Jarboe, [email protected], 2012 poster and student session chairs.

Also, there are student discounts on registration and banquet attendance, and SIMB will be hosting a free student mentoring luncheon during the meeting.

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Program Committee

Program ChairSteve Van [email protected]

Organizing CommitteeBiocatalysis Shelley [email protected]

Patrick Cirino [email protected]

Debbie [email protected]

EnvironmentalRadhakrishnan Mahdevan, [email protected]

Wilfred Chen [email protected]

Melanie Mormile [email protected]

Fermentation/Cell Culture

Helia [email protected]

Noel Fong [email protected]

David Hogsett [email protected]

Metabolic EngineeringJanice Pero, [email protected] Jones Prather [email protected]

Brian Pfelger [email protected]

William Bentley [email protected]

Natural ProductsHuimin Zhao [email protected]

Alexander [email protected]

Paul Jensen [email protected]

ExhibitorsAlberta Innovates Technology Futures www.albertatechfutures.ca

Angel Yeast Co., Ltd http://en.angelyeast.com

Applied Instruments Technologies Inc. www.aitanalyzers.com

Applikon Biotechnology, Inc. www.applikon-biotechnology.us

Appropriate Technical Resources, Inc. (ATR) www.atrbiotech.com

Bioengineering, Inc. www.bioengineering-inc.com

Biolog Inc. www.biolog.com

BioPro International, Inc. www.biopro.com

BioSpringer www.biospringer.com

Bio-Technical Resources www.biotechresources.com

BlueSens gas sensor GmbH www.bluesens.com

Broadley-James Corporation www.broadleyjames.com

BugLab LLC www.buglab.com

Chemglass Life Science www.chemglass.com

Cofactor Genomics www.cofactorgenomics.com

DASGIP www.dasgip.com

DCI-Biolafitte www.dci-bio.com

DNA2.0 Inc. www.dna20.com

Eppendorf www.eppendorf.com

Friesland Campina Domo www.domo.nl

Global BioIngredients, Inc. www.globalbioingredients.com

Hamilton Company www.hamiltoncompany.com

Hiden Analytical, Inc. www.hidenanalytical.com

Lallemand, Inc. www.lallemand.com

M2P-labs, Inc. www.m2p-labs.com

Marcor Development Corporation www.marcordev.com

New Brunswick Scientific www.nbsc.com

North Carolina State University – BTEC www.btec.ncsu.edu

Ocean Optics www.oceanoptics.com

optek-Danulat, Inc. www.optek.com

Quality Management Inc. (QMI) www.qmisystems.com

PanLabs Biologics (BVI), Inc. www.panlabsbiologics.com

Sartorius Stedim Biotech www.sartorius-stedim.com

Sensient Bio-Ingredients www.sensientbio-ingredients.com

Society for Applied Microbiology www.sfam.org.uk

TAP Biosystems www.tapbiosystems.com

Teknova www.teknova.no

Traders Protein/ADM www.adm.com/en-US/products/industrial/fermentation_nutrients

Trovib, LLC http://trovib.com

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Jay Keasling received his BS in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Ne-braska in 1986; his PhD in Chemical Engi-neering from the University of Michigan in 1991; and did post-doctoral work in Biochemistry at Stanford University 1991-1992. Keasling joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley as an assistant pro-fessor in 1992, where he is currently the Hubbard Howe Distinguished Professor of Biochemical Engineering. Keasling is also a professor in the Department of Bio-engineering at Berkeley, a sr. faculty sci-

entist and Associate Laboratory Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Labo-ratory and Chief Executive Officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. Dr. Keasling’s research focuses on engineering micro-organisms for environmentally friendly synthesis of small molecules or degra-dation of environmental contaminants. Keasling’s laboratory has engineered bacteria and yeast to produce polymers, a precursor to the anti-malarial drug ar-temisinin, and advanced biofuels and soil microorganisms to accumulate uranium and to degrade nerve agents.

Amgen Keynote Lecture: Jay KeaslingSynthetic biology for synthetic fuelsKeynote is Sunday, August 12 at 5pm. Registration for the annual meeting will begin at 11am, Sunday August 12.

Sponsors

www.albertainnovates.ca

www.waksmanfoundation.com

www.novozymes.comwww.amgen.comwww.lonza.com

www.genomatica.com

www.adm.com

Monserate Biotechwww.monseratebiotech.com

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BiocatalysisEnzyme engineering and directed evolutionConvener: Nobu Tokuriki, Univ. of British Columbia

Directed evolution has been applied to many enzymes and success-ful to engineer their properties. Recent theoretical and technologi-cal advances expand a potential to create novel enzymes for indus-trial applications. In this session, we will discuss a frontier in enzyme engineering and directed evolution.

Enzymes for biomass treatmentConvener: Debbie Yaver, Novozymes

To enable second generation ethanol and advanced biofuels pro-duction from lignocellulosic biomass enzymes for cost effective hydrolysis are needed. This session will focus on recent discover-ies in enzymes for biomass hydrolysis including high temperature and halophillic cellulases. New insights into mechanisms of fungal glycosyl hydrolases and oxidative enzymes will also be discussed.

EnvironmentalAdvances in microbial fuel cellsElectroactive biofilms (EABs) are heterogeneous microbial commu-nity that conserve energy through extracellular electron transfer to solid surfaces and electrodes. The session will focus on EABs and their application to bioelectricity production in Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs). In the first part, the speakers will report recent fundamental advances in EAB characterization through direct electrochemistry and microbiological methods. In the second part, the focus will be on MFCs for wastewater treatment and bioremediation, both at laboratory and pilot plant scale.

Zero waste technologies for biofuels pro-duction: impacts of extremophiles and their enzymesConvener: Rajesh Sani, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

It is now widely accepted that extremophilic microbes including thermophiles are recognized as one of the most efficient microbial groups in the conversion of solid wastes including lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels. For example, advantages of using thermo-stable cellulases, xylanases for lignocellulose degradation include higher stability (greater half-lives, allowing elongated hydrolysis times), low viscosity (increased solubility of reactants and prod-ucts), increased flexibility for the process configurations, reduced risk of contamination, and lower energy cost for cooling in case of thermal pre-treatment of substrates. Therefore, carrying out hydro-lysis and/or fermentation at higher temperature will ultimately lead to improved process performance through decreased enzyme dos-age and reduced lignocellulose degradation time, thus, resulting in decreased costs. This session will discuss advantages and limita-tions of solid waste conversion technologies using extremophiles and their enzymes.

Metabolic EngineeringSpecialty chemicals/materials from renewable resourcesConvener: Kristala J. Prather, MITNew tools, methodologies and pathways in metabolic engineering have brought forth a number of systems for the biological produc-tion of chemicals, with many heading towards commercial produc-tion. This session will focus on advancements for the microbial production of specialty chemicals and materials from renewable resources.

Session highlights for the SIMB Annual MeetingDescriptions of some of the sessions being held at this year’s meeting

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Natural ProductsNovel enzyme mechanisms in biosynthesis and secondary metabolismConvener: Douglas Mitchell, U. of Ill

Topics for this session cover diverse examples of natural product biosynthesis, including the elucidation of chemical structure and biological function. Although ribosomal and non-ribosomal pep-tide derived compounds are of interest, our talks are not restricted to such natural products.

Natural products from unusual sourcesConvener: David Newman, NIH

Antibiotics in the widest sense of the term have usually been found from terrestrial sources via fermentation, but the search using mi-crobes has dwindled due to “finding the same old, same old com-pounds”. However, with the discovery that microbes have signifi-cant numbers of “cryptic secondary metabolite clusters,” has come the realization that control of these clusters may well produce mol-ecules that have not been reported from microbes, be they well studied or not even known previously. This symposium will help to show how modification of assays and fermentation conditions coupled to a knowledge of genomics may well be the “new frontier” in discovery, utilizing sources old and new.

Special SessionsSynthetic Biology Tools and ApplicationsConvener: Christopher Voight, MIT

This session will focus on methodologies to accelerate genetic en-gineering. Topics will include next-generation computer-aided de-sign (CAD), the characterization of genetic parts, and the construc-tion of large genetic systems.

Roundtable on women in scienceConvener: Joan W. Bennett, Rutgers

Included in this year’s program is a roundtable entitled “Women in Science with an emphasis on the role of women in SIMB, and how to inspire young women to pursue a career in the sciences. During the history of SIMB eight women have served as presidents, three have won the Thom award, and seven women have been appointed Fellows. The overall theme for discussion will be what inspired the participants to get involved in industrial. Participants will also share the importance of mentors, obstacles, and the individual perspec-tive of women in science now. Attendees then will be encouraged to share their experiences as students and professionals in science. Based on the discussions and feedback, consideration will be given to the formation of a women’s committee to promote contributions by women to SIMB.

Next generation DNA sequencing technologies and applicationsConvener: Jon Armstrong, Cofactor Genomics, Inc.

Next-generation sequencing and analysis provides the ability to as-sess the genomic organization and regulatory processes of organ-isms at a previously unimagined resolution. This session will bring together execution and thought leaders, from molecular biology and bioinformatics, to present current strategies and challenges as-sociated with generating, analyzing, and utilizing next-generation sequencing data.

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Workshop 1Fermentation BasicsOrganizer: Mark Berge, Medimmune

In an effort to provide individuals with an introduction to fer-mentation concepts in industrial settings, a pre-meeting, one day workshop is being offered. The workshop will be lecture based with visual aids to help the attendees understand the fer-mentation principles discussed. The workshop will be broken into sections based upon the topics that are being presented. After each section has been completed, the attendees will be given real life fermentation case studies that they will work through to reinforce the just discussed topics. The first section of the workshop will include topics on fermenter design includ-ing aspect ratios, agitator design, sparger design and steriliza-tion of equipment and media. The second section will deal with actual operational issues of fermentation processes. Included will be discussions about media considerations, foam control strategies, shear, mixing, aeration, feeds and different types of fermentations and the controls involved. The workshop will fin-ish with a section that covers issues involved in scale-up to pro-duction size fermentors.

About the organizerSince 2010 Mark Berge has been Sr. Scientist at MedImmune, Inc. in the Process Cell Culture & Fermentation group leading a team responsible for fermentation and cell culture process develop-ment activities. From 2006 to 2010, he was Sr. Scientist at Amgen Inc. in the Cell Science & Technology group developing process-es for therapeutic protein production using fermentation. From 1999 to 2005, Mark was Sr. Scientist at Pfizer Inc. in the Global Biologics division, developing processes for therapeutic protein production using cell culture. From 1995 to 1999, he was Process Engineer at FermPro Manufacturing in deep tank toll manufac-turing for varied customers of food grade materials. Mark holds a BS and MS in chemical engineering from the University of New Hampshire.

Two pre-meeting workshops at SIMB 2012Both all-day workshops will be held Sunday, August 12 at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

Workshop 2Advanced, parallel upstream screening and process devel-opment: maximizing culture consistency to get the most out of lab-scale Design of Experiment (DoE) effortsOrganizer: David Laidlaw

Driven by Quality by Design (QbD) initiatives, Design of Experiment (DoE) approaches to fermentation and process de-velopment ask more of our upstream bench-scale experiments than ever before. This educational workshop will teach theo-retical and practical implementation of tools and technologies intended for upstream screening and process development ex-periments. The workshop will cover many commonly used labo-ratory tools and will emphasize their practical use in the labora-tory with hands-on training. This workshop will not lecture on Design of Experiments but will instead emphasize the use of proper laboratory techniques and tools so that process-defining experiments are conducted under characterized and reproduc-ible conditions. The tools featured in this workshop would generally be imple-mented upstream of stirred tank bioreactors. Starting with advanced well-plates (sensors and fed-batch) the lectures will progress through advanced shake flasks (sensors, fed-batch, off-gas), controlled well-plate systems and ultimately conclude at miniature stirred tank bioreactors. The lectures will review and explain published engineering and characterization data for these platforms and show how to use this information to improve daily experiment routines and generate higher quality results. Lectures will be presented in a training format and will prepare the participant for afternoon of rotating workstations. It is during the afternoon workstations that participants will put newly-learned skills to use. The series of (5 or 6) workstations will allow attendees to obtain hands-on experience with the equip-ment and ask applications-specific questions of the mornings presenters.

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Exhibitor Showcases

New for 2012. Exhibitor showcases will be held during the lunch break. Grab your lunch and view the demos; adjacent to the exhibit hall.

Students

Students receive discounts on registration and banquet, and a free student mentoring luncheon will be held.

Poster session awards - $500 in each of the core areas. Oral session award - $500. Sub-mit your abstract now!

Job FairMonday, August 13, 2012

8:00 am – 4:00 pm

Washington Hilton Washington, DC

For more information on setting up your corporate table for the job fair, contact: Bob Berger, SIMB Placement Chair (bbberg@ att.net). Find an application here (http://www.simhq.org/annual/simb-annual-meeting-job-fair/).

Cost to participate:

SIMB Corporate Member: $250

Non-Corporate Member $350

Includes: one 2’ x 6’ table in the Job Fair location, company sign, two chairs; access to private interview room throughout the dates of the meeting; searchable resumes before and after the fair; announcement of participation on SIMB web site including company link; discount on 30-day job post-ing on the SIMB career center site; lunch ticket.

About the organizerDavid Laidlaw, Small Scale Technologies Manager, Applikon Biotechnology Inc.

Dave Laidlaw is an active contributor in the field of small-scale fermentation and cell culture process control and instrumenta-tion. Having completed graduate studies in the biotechnology laboratory at the University of British Columbia, Mr. Laidlaw has worked as both a process development scientist and an equip-ment development specialist. It is with this background that David brings an end-user perspective to upstream screening and technology development at Applikon Biotechnology Inc. Prior to joining Applikon, David held positions in Applications Development at MicroReactor Technologies Inc. and in Fermentation Process Development at Genentech Inc.

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2nd Recent Advances in Microbial Control(RAMC)October 28 - 31, 2012Hilton Old Town AlexandriaAlexandria, VA

Web site: www.simhq.org/ramc

Contact SIMB

SponsorshipChristine [email protected]

Sponsorship opportunities avail-able. In addition to inclusion in conference publicity, sponsors may also receive complimentary registrations or exhibit space.

ExhibitsNancy [email protected] tabletop prospectus online.

AdvertisingSuzannah [email protected]

Advertising opportunities avail-able in the meeting program.

Submit your abstractSubmit your abstract for the second SIMB conference on microbial control.

Registration and housingRegistration and housing are open.

Organizing Committee Sid Crow , Georgia State UniversityGeorge Pierce, Georgia State University, Jana Rajan, Dow Microbial Control Debbie Yaver, Novozymes

Keynote SpeakerSIMB welcomes as Keynote Speaker Dr. Rita Colwell, Distinguished University Profes-sor both at the University of Maryland at College Park and at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Senior Advisor and Chairman Emeritus, Canon US Life Sciences, Inc., and President and CEO of CosmosID, Inc. Her interests are focused on global infectious diseases, water, and health, and she is currently developing an interna-tional network to address emerging infectious diseases and water issues, including safe drinking water for both the developed and developing world.

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Session Topics

EnergyConveners: Paul Sturman, Montana State University and Michael Ludensky, Lonza

WaterConveners: John Calomiris, Sotiria Science and Terry Williams, Dow Microbial Control

Food SafetyConveners: Jana Rajan, Dow Microbial Conrol and James Marsden, Kansas State University

Speakers:BeefJames Marsden, Kansas State University

Materials ProtectionConveners: Daniel Price, U.S. Interface, Inc. and Sid Crow, Georgia State University

NosocomialConveners: George Pierce, Georgia State University and Mary Mayo, C.R. Bard

Emerging TechnologiesConveners: Debbie Yaver, Novozymes and John Chapman, Ashland Water Technologies

Speakers:Biological controlJ. Leader, Novozymes

Rapid detection technologiesSayed Hasham, Michigan State University

Nonchemical devices in water treatmentJohn Chapman, Ashland Water Technologies s

calendar


SIMB MeetingsFor further information on SIMB meetings, contact: SIMB, 3929 Old Lee Highway, Suite 92A, Fairfax, VA 22030-2421; T: 703-691-3357; F: 703-691-7991; E: [email protected]; W: www.simhq.org.

August 12-16, 2012

2012 Annual Meeting and Exhibition

Washington HiltonWashington, DCwww.simhq.org/annual

October 28-31, 2012

Recent Advances in Microbial Control

Hilton Old Town AlexandriaAlexandria, VA www.simhq.org/ramc

April 29-May 2, 2013

35th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals

Hilton Portland Portland, OR

August 11-15, 2013 2013 Annual Meeting and Exhibition

Sheraton San Diego San Diego, CA

November 3-6, 2013

RAFT 10 TBD

Non-SIMB Meetings

June 16-19, 2012 ASM 112th General Meeting San Francisco, CAhttp://gm.asm.org/

July 21-25, 2012 American Society of Virology 31st Annual Meeting

Monona Terrace Convention CenterMadison, Wisconsin – Hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madisonhttp://conferencing.uwex.edu/conferences/asv2012/

August 25 – September 2, 2012

Microbial Metabolites in Nature and Medicine

Fourth John Innes/Rudjer Bošković Summer School in Applied Molecular MicrobiologyInter-University CentreDubrovnik, Croatiawww.jic.ac.uk/

September 3-5, 2012

Society for General Microbiology Autumn Conference

University Of Warwickwww.sgm.ac.uk/meetings/MTGPAGES/Warwick2012.cfm

October 14-17, 2012

Lignobiotech II Symposium Fukuoka (Acros Fukuoka), Japan Extended deadline for oral presentations: June 30, 2012www.congre.co.jp/lignobiotech-2/E: [email protected]

December 15-19, 2012

American Soceity for Cell Biology General Meeting

San Francisco, CAwww.ascb.org

calendar


Workshops and Short Courses

NOTE: SIMB has partnered with North Carolina State University’s Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) to offer discounted professional short courses to SIMB members. • SIMB members from industry receive a 20% discount on course registration. • SIMB members from academia receive a 50% discount on registration.To receive your discount, you must register for BTEC short courses through the SIMB website member login.

June 19-20, 2012 Biologic Formulation Science Fundamentals

BTEC Bioprocess Development TrackFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

July 9-12, 2012 cGMP Biomanufacturing Operations

BTEC Biomanufacturing TrackFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

July 24-26, 2012 Fermentation Engineering BTEC Bioprocess Engineering TrackFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

July 24-25, 2012 Assay Development and Validation for Biomolecules

BTEC Analytical Technologies TrackFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

July 31-August2, 2012

Biopharmaceutical Analysis BTEC Analytical Technologies TrackFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

August 7-9, 2012 Downstream Biopharmaceutical Processes: Fundamentals and Design

BTEC Bioprocess Development TrackFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

October 3-5, 2012 Process Architecture: Integrating the Process to Deliver Successful Facility Solutions

BTEC Special Course offeringFor more information: www.btec.ncsu.edu/industry/short_courses/To register, log in as member at: www.simhq.org

Varies BioBrainz Life Sciences – Courses in Bioinformatics and Biotechnology

Visit web site for details on courses offered: www.biobrainz.com/

Varies NSF International Visit web site for details on courses offered: www.nsf.org/cphe/.

Varies ASM - Teleconferences and Webinars

Visit web site for locations and details on courses offered.: www.asmaudio.org/

Varies Penn State – Food Microbiology Short Courses

Visit web site for details on courses offered: http://foodscience.psu.edu/workshops/food-microbiology

Varies Rutgers University – Food Safety Courses

Visit web site for details on courses offered: www.cpe.rutgers.edu/programs/food_science_food_safety.html

Varies Silliker Laboratories Call for details and a list of courses offered: 800-829-7879 or 708-957-7878.

Anyone wishing to publicize a meeting or have it included in the calendar is asked to send the information to: SIMB, 3929 Old Lee Hwy, Suite 92A Fairfax, VA 22030-2421; E: [email protected]. All entries will be listed on a space-available basis.

SIMB offers three levels of corporate membership. Bronze level at $700, provides the following benefits:

• Discount on exhibit space for your company.• One regular SIMB membership for a representative with subscriptions to SIMB News and JIMB.• Reduced rates on advertising in SIMB News, plus a free corporate profile in one issue.• Availability of the SIMB membership mailing list at a reduced cost (20% off).• Free announcements of contracts awarded, new products or publications & personnel changes listed in SIMB News.• Recognition in every issue of SIMB News and JIMB.• Company link and description included on the corporate membership page of SIMB’s website (50 words or less).• Discounts on job postings in SIMB’s online career center.

Gold - $1200, includes Bronze level benefits, plus • Two additional full exhibitor Annual Meeting registrations with banquet ticket (total 3). • One additional regular SIMB membership (total 2). • Company logo included on the corporate membership page of SIMB’s website. • Three free uses of the SIMB membership mailing list (and 20% discount on additional mailing lists).

Diamond - $2000, includes Gold level benefits, plus • One additional full exhibitor Annual Meeting registration with banquet ticket (total 4). • One free Exhibitor Showcase (10 minutes) at Annual Meeting. • One $500 credit toward an ad placement (Ad placement cost must be at least $500 before credit can be applied). • Company logo and link added to rolling display on SIMB’s hompage.

Method of payment (SIMB Fed ID: 35-6026-526) Check (Payable to SIMB) Charge: MC Visa AMEXCard #: Exp. date:Signature: Total amount enclosed: $

Our company will join SIMB as a corporate member in the following category:

Bronze, $700 Gold, $1200 Diamond, $2000

Name of Company:

Company website:

Authorizing officer who is to receive all billing information:

Name ____________________________

Title _____________________________

Address __________________________

_________________________________

City, State, ZIP_____________________

Country___________________________

Tel _______________________________

Fax _______________________________

E-mail ____________________________

Company representative who will receive membership including publications:

Name ____________________________

Title _____________________________

Address __________________________

_________________________________

City, State, ZIP_____________________

Country___________________________

Tel _______________________________

Fax _______________________________

E-mail ____________________________

Additional company representative (Gold and Diamond Only):

Name ____________________________

Title _____________________________

Address __________________________

_________________________________

City, State, ZIP_____________________

Country___________________________

Tel _______________________________

Fax _______________________________

E-mail ____________________________

2012 SIMB Corporate Membership ApplicationSIMB • 3929 Old Lee Hwy, Ste 92A • Fairfax, VA 22030 • T: 703-691-3357 ext. 23 • F: 703-691-7991 • www.simhq.org

Please do not send me SIMB Information via e-mail. Please do not include me on any SIMB mailing lists.Please do not include my information in the SIMB onlinemembership directory

Please select a delivery method for JIMB.Note: SIMB News is available online only. Print copy delivery via postal service Print copy Online only access

Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

Dedicated to the industrial application of microbiology and biotechnology

Corporate Member Benefits

•Three levels available

•Complimentary membership for corporate representative(s)

•Discounts on exhibit space, advertising, and mailing lists

•Company logo, description, and link to corporate member website

•Free announcements of contracts awarded, new products, and personnel changes in SIMB News

•Recognition in every issue of SIMB News, JIMB, and on SIMB website

visit us at: www.simhq.org

Job Fair

Monday, August 13 , 20128am - 4pmWashington HiltonWashington, DC

A Job Fair will be held in conjunction with the 2012 SIMB Annual Meeting. The fair will run from 8am - 4pm at the Washington Hilton Set up will begin at 7am.

Cost for corporate participation$250 SIMB Corporate Members; $350 Non-Corporate Member.

Includes:• One 2’ x 6’ table in the Job Fair location,

company sign, two chairs

• Access to private interview room through-out the dates of the SIMB Annual Meeting (August 12 - 16)

• Resumes available before and after the fair

• Announcement of participation on the SIMB website including company link

• Discount on 30-day job posting on the SIMB career center site

• Lunch ticket

Questions? Christine Lowe3929 Old Lee Highway, Suite 92AFairfax, VA 22030email: [email protected]: 703-691-3357, x 26fax: 703-691-7991

SIMB Career CenterSIMB has launched an improved career center.

With the career center, job seekers can search for jobs, post their resumes and set up automated alerts, notifying them when new jobs become available.

Employers can now post a job opening instantly, and are able to search through resumes to find qualified employees.

http://careers.simhq.org

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