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IWGT and the UKEMS Annual Meeting 2002 in Plymouth

The organising committee for the IWGT has decided that the workshop, that was originally scheduled to take place last year in Japan, will now be held in Plymouth, immediately before the UKEMS annual meeting. This provides an excellent opportunity for UKEMS members to attend an important international Workshop and an added incentive to stay on for the UKEMS meeting. For UKEMS it is our good fortune and an opportunity perhaps to welcome delegates who would not normally travel so far for the UKEMS meeting alone. I encourage all of you to consider attending both. Enclosed with this Newsletter are further details about and the application form to attend the IWGT Workshop.

IWGT Registration Form

Report on the 8th ICEM by Declan Mckenna, one of the participants in the Home-Stay programme

I attended the 8th ICEM conference in Shizuoka, Japan as part of the Home-Stay Program and found it to be very informative and useful trip. The conference itself was exceptionally well organised and the Granship building provided a wonderful setting and excellent facilities. In general, the lectures were well presented and were followed by excellent discussions (arguments?) afterwards. The topics were wide-ranging and relevant, with many prominent scientists presenting overviews of their particular field of work. These review lectures provided an excellent understanding of various aspects of mutagen research and also allowed younger scientists like myself to gaze slack-jawed and wide-eyed in awe at fabled scientists whose names we had previously only seen in print. The huge array of poster presentations also provided something for everyone and the timetable allowed ample opportunity for meeting with individual presenters. On a personal note I was delighted to be able to present my own research to an international audience and was pleased with the amount of people who expressed an interest in the finer aspects of the work. The meeting also afforded me a great opportunity to meet up with other young scientists from around the world and I made a lot of new contacts as well as renewing some old acquaintances.

The Home-Stay program was a hugely rewarding experience. The opportunity to stay with a Japanese family in their home was unusual and interesting and was much more stimulating than a stay in a hotel room. My host family, the Yanamuras, told me much about the history and culture of Japan and introduced me to many of the culinary delights of Japanese cuisine. Having never tasted sushi before, I was pleasantly surprised to find that all versions of it were delicious, despite my initial misgivings. Likewise, all the types of fruit, vegetables and rice were extremely tasty and even the barbecued chicken hearts and gizzards were fabulous. However, I must confess I had to push aside my bowl of seaweed and mushroom soup each morning. My host family proved wonderful hosts and provided me with great comfort for my stay in Shizuoka. And of course I sampled copious amounts of the legendary rice-wine, sake – well, it would have been rude to refuse. They also offered to let me stay with them again if I should travel out to Japan to watch the World Cup finals in June. They even told me to invite my friends, but I assured them that their house was nice enough the way it was. In conclusion, the trip to the ICEM in Japan was a great experience, providing a great mix of both science and socialising - the way every good conference should be!

UKEMS Young Scientist for 2002

There were two nominations for the 2002 UKEMS Young Scientist Award, Dr Marcus Cooke from Leicester and Dr Gareth Jenkins from Swansea. By a majority decision, the expert panel of five (three Fellows and two from the Committee) decided that the 2002 Award should be presented to Gareth – our congratulations to him and our acknowledgements to Marcus for a very worthy second place. Gareth will receive travel, registration and accommodation expenses for the forthcoming EEMS meeting, a cheque for £250, an inscribed UKEMS Young Scientist medal and a one-year subscription to Mutagenesis. Furthermore, he will be expected to present a Young Scientist Award Lecture in Plymouth in July.

As part of the 25th Anniversary meeting of UKEMS to be held in Plymouth, IGG are organising a symposium on Industrial Genotoxicity and International Regulatory Developments. This will include reports from the IWGT workgroups. In view of this symposium, there will be no Spring meeting this year but the December meeting will be held as normal.

The next events on the MEG calendar include a one-day meeting at the University of Leeds on 10 December 2002 on the topic of "Early Life Exposures and Disease". The speakers will include Mel Greaves (London), Julian Little (Aberdeen), Pat Doyle (London) and Andrew Prentice (London) who will present evidence for the critical role of exposures early in life on determining risk of a number of diseases later in life. Further details on registration and the finalised programme for this meeting will be available shortly through the UKEMS website.

There will be a MEG-organised session entitled "DNA Repair and Disease Susceptibility" to be held on the 1 July 2002 on the opening day of the 25^th Anniversary UKEMS Meeting in Plymouth. The speakers for this session are Tomas Lindahl (Herts, UK), Alain Sarasin (Villejuif, France), Geoff Margison (Manchester, UK), Margaret Spitz (Houston, USA) and Andrew Collins (Aberdeen, UK).

It has been decided to postpone the BACR/UKEMS MEG Conference, 18-21 September 2002 in Cumbria.

The MEG group of the American Association for Cancer Research is planning a meeting on "Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology of Cancer" in November 2002 in Hawaii and MEG/UKEMS has agreed to sponsor this meeting through the provision of funding to support UKEMS members invited to speak at this meeting.

For further information on any MEG activities, please contact Jenny Duckmanton, Dept of Biology, University of York, PO Box 373, York YO10 5YW - email jmd4@york.ac.uk

A reminder that this year’s EEMS meeting will take place in Poland from 3-7 September. Note that the deadline for Abstracts is May 15, for discounted registration is June 15, and for the discounted VERA Hotel registration is May 15.

EEMS, Aberdeen, August 24-28 2003

We will be hosting the 33rd annual meeting of the European Environmental Mutagen Society, in Aberdeen. The title 'From Hazard to Risk' will cover a variety of themes. There will be plenary symposia on Nutrition and Carcinogenesis, Molecular Epidemiology of Cancer, and Oxidative DNA Damage. Industrial Genotoxicity Testing, Ecogenotoxicology, and Aneuploidy & Chromosome Stability will also be in the programme. There will be workshops, and sessions for proffered oral contributions and posters.

On the social side, a Scottish flavour will be guaranteed, with whiskey tasting and a ceilidh, a civic reception, a concert of Scottish music, and an outing to castles, gardens and the coast. Aberdeenshire has subtle charm, and we hope that many of you will take the opportunity to discover it. For further information, please contact eems2003@rowett.ac.uk.

Note that there will be no separate UKEMS meeting in 2003.

Application for a UKEMS Young Scientist Travel Bursary

Steve Dean (Secretary)

3-7 September 2002, Warsaw, Poland, 32^nd EEMS "DNA damage and repair; fundamental aspects and contribution to human disorders (Contact the Conference Secretariat, Ms Agata Stasiak, e-mail: eems32@ibb.waw.pl and see www.ibb.waw.pl/Centr-Dosk/eems/)

Lake Windermere, MEG/BACR joint meeting "Molecules and Markers in Cancer Epidemiology". Date to be arranged.

March 2003, PAEMS, Cairo, Egypt (Contact El-Hussain El –Khatib, e-mail: amro96@usa.net)

July 2003, Aberdeen, EEMS Annual Scientific Meeting (Contact e-mail: eems2003@rowett.ac.uk)

11-16 July 2004, Tampere, Finland, The 10^th International Congress of Toxicology (Contact Prof Hanna Tähti, E-mail b1hata@uta.fi or visit www.uta.fi/fst/).