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Report on the 2000 UKEMS meeting in Swansea, by Chiara Corso

This year’s UKEMS meeting was held in Swansea. On the first evening of the conference there was organized a discussion between young scientists and representatives of the "job world". This encounter was very informative and opened the mind of many of us who did not have a clear idea about the different Pharmaceutical and Academic careers. Dr. Barry Elliot introduced the discussion showing some slides of some eminent scientists that we all know in their lab attire, which was quite funny. It wasn’t enough entertaining, although, for some people who were in the pub next door watching the final game of the world cup and cheering for France (let’s not go there, what a shame!!). Despite the loss of Italy (sigh!), the opened discussion was very pleasant and also very useful for the students to give their opinions on how it would be possible to improve the UKEMS society. The scientific content of the meeting was brilliant. The workshop on Rapid screening system for genotoxic chemicals was very stimulating. Many young scientists gave their contribution in an excellent and didactic manner. Moreover, the symposium on the Industrial genotoxicology group (IGG) was very useful. In this symposium we heard about the World-wide Genotoxicology Guidelines and Strategies and for this purpose eminent people came from the States, and Japan as well as from UK to elucidate all the different approaches. The section of ecogenotoxicology was also very enjoyable. Dr. Martin's presentation was one of the highlights of the meeting. He deservedly won the UKEMS young scientist Award 2000. I also enjoyed the superb presentation given by Prof. John Ashby, who talked about "Endocrine disruption and the UKEMS". His lecture was very informative as well as exciting, providing an excellent example for young scientists.

There were three poster sessions, respectively about Carcinogenesis, Genotoxicity and New and Developing Test methods. Posters were well presented and with high scientific content. It was a very enjoyable meeting and attempted the opportunity to meet very interesting people, and to exchange different and stimulating opinions. Even the weather wasn't too nasty apart from one afternoon when we all witnessed a monsoon that provided to soak all our nice and executive looking suits just running from the cafeteria to the lecture theatre. The conference dinner took place in the Dylan Tomas centre. After dinner we have all been entertained by the Sqirt, an apparently legendary band that managed to rekindle some nostalgic memories from the "old" Swansea students. It was a shame that due to the intensity of the program there wasn’t an opportunity to explore the locality (the Gower, etc) especially for those who travelled from further a field. I was very lucky to win the best presentation award, which will enable me to attend an overseas conference. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the UKEMS committee for giving us students the opportunity to broaden our horizons both from a scientific and a personal point of view.

A brief report on the 30^th Annual Meeting of EEMS, Budapest August 2000 – by Victoria Cheung & Josephine Hagger

We were requested to provide our thoughts from the EEMS meeting in Budapest, which we were able to attend thanks to travel bursaries provided by UKEMS. The scientific program commenced with two simultaneous workshops, covering the fields of Eco-genotoxicology and New Developments in Test Methods. Our specific interests were emphasised in the eco-genotoxicology session, where Dr Kevin Chipman presented an interesting view regarding the problems encountered in laboratory and field studies. Other stimulating presentations were provided and included subjects such as natural selection in aquatic organisms, the effects of heavy metals in mammalian systems, DNA damage in bivalve species, and endocrine disruption. Other symposiums of interest included cell cycle repair, genetic susceptibility to environmental toxicants, molecular changes relevant to mutagenesis and carcinogenesis, and apoptosis. The Fritz Sobels award was won by Dr Srám who gave a presentation on the impacts of air pollution in the Czech republic. This was followed by one of the two winners of the Young Scientist’s award, Dr Thomas Schmid, who provided an insight into his work on mouse sperm aneuploidy using multi-coloured FISH. These as well as the two poster sessions made this an inspiring meeting. Many thanks to the organisers for the cultural events, their hospitality and welcoming international scientists to the beautiful city of Budapest.

A second report on the 30^th Annual Meeting of EEMS, Budapest August 2000 – by Andrew Collins

Budapest, astride the Danube, is a city so essentially part of Europe that it is hard to believe that only a decade ago it was newly liberated from communist repression. The city is as chaotic as ever, and the people welcoming and friendly; prices, however, are rapidly reaching western European levels. The EEMS meeting was held in a hotel which could have been anywhere, but on the first evening we had a taste of the vivacity of Hungarian culture, with a performance of folk music and dance which had the most sober of scientists enthusiastically joining in. This followed the two opening lectures, by Árpád Gógl, the Hungarian Minister of Health, who addressed the challenges, dangers and benefits presented by genome research; and Paul Lohman, who took a nostalgic look back over 30 years of mutation research in Leiden and the lasting heritage of Fritz Sobels. The first plenary session on the following morning provided an excellent introduction to environmental mutagenesis in the modern Europe. Lajos Döbrôssy described the particular health problems of the former communist countries of central/eastern Europe; cancer rates are still rising, in contrast with the situation in neighbouring countries where there are at last signs that the cancer epidemic is under some control. One possible explanation, he explained, is that the frustrations of living under a totalitarian regime, with enough money but few consumer goods to spend it on, led people to seek relief in alcohol, smoking, and eating unhealthy foods. Julian Preston talked about the need to understand the underlying mechanisms of carcinogenesis - especially at low levels of exposure to carcinogens - in order to establish proper dose-response relationships and to make realistic risk assessments. Maria Sorsa addressed the issue of ethics in our branch of science - a theme which recurred during the meeting; we need to be fully involved in setting guidelines and codes of practice at the European level. She also reported a recent survey highlighting the ignorance of basic scientific concepts in the general European population - as well as the lack of confidence in the pronouncements of scientists.

A whole day was devoted to a symposium on individual susceptibility to environmental toxins. Polymorphisms in any of the innumerable genes involved in responses to carcinogenic agents - phase I and II metabolising enzymes, antioxidants, DNA repair, cell signalling etc. - may be important determinants of individual risk. Genotype analysis for some better known genes such as CYP, GST and NAT is now fairly routine in population studies; interesting correlations between particular polymorphisms and biomarkers of exposure or effect, such as DNA damage, are appearing; but the picture is incomplete and interpretation would be premature.

Other symposia and workshops covered the areas of Eco-genotoxicology, New test-methods, Molecular changes in mutagenesis and carcinogenesis, Human biomonitoring, Cell cycle and DNA repair, Germ-cell cytogenetics, Apoptosis, Regulatory aspects (directives and guidelines), and Cancer risk.

The poster sessions were an integral part of the meeting, occupying two afternoons, and they were taken seriously by both presenters and spectators. The overall standard was high, and augurs well for the future health of this research area. A panel selected 9 of the best posters for oral presentation on the final morning, and this session turned out to be one of the best. Two poster presenters - Charlotta Fred, from Stockholm University, and Davor Zeljezic from the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health, Zagreb - were chosen to receive young investigators’ awards.

At the other extreme, the Fritz Sobels Award is given in recognition of lifetime achievement. Radim Šram, from the Czech Republic, was the recipient; a past-president of EEMS, he has worked for over 30 years in environmental mutagenesis, and was a pioneer in the application of biomarkers of exposure and effect to exposed human populations. His lecture described the Teplice Programme - an intensive study of human health in one of the most polluted regions in central Europe.

Looking to the years ahead, Michael Waters stressed the need for reliable measures of exposure, the recognition of individual variations in susceptibility, and the importance of functional analysis to elucidate the relationship between genotype and phenotype. He described the exciting prospect offered by DNA micro-array technology to look at changes in gene expression, though the amount of data generated is quite likely to overwhelm our ability to analyse it.

Future annual meetings of the EEMS were announced, and we were enticed by colour slides illustrating the very different charms of Ghent, Belgium (2001), Warsaw, Poland (2002) and Aberdeen, Scotland (2003) as well as Shizuoka, Japan, where the ICEM meeting will be held in 2001.

The IGG committee are pleased to announce that the next IGG meeting will be a joint meeting with the SFTG (Societé Française de Toxicologie Genetique, a national section of EEMS). The topic will be the in vitro micronucleus test.and the meeting will be held on Monday 4 December 2000 at the RSM, London from 10.00 to 16.30. SFTG recently organised an International Collaborative Study on the in vitro micronucleus test and the preliminary results were presented at the 30th Annual EEMS meeting in Budapest, Hungary. We anticipate that the backbone of the December meeting will be the results of the GUM, Japanese and SFTG studies. The intention is to have a data-driven discussion on the in vitro micronucleus test. A mailing containing further details will be despatched shortly

The IGG committee are always keen to hear your thoughts or ideas eg is there a survey you would find useful or an issue that could be resolved by a small, focussed collaborative study? Julie can be reached by email at julie.clements@covance.com

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

The EEMS website was a topic of discussion at the Councillor meeting. Rob Baan, the EEMS treasurer, is the webmaster and is keen to promote the advantages of immediate access to current information that the website offers. There is currently information on the structure and function of the EEMS, as well as the EEMS Newsletter - the main formal communication medium for EEMS and member society activities. Rob is willing to receive any information from member societies that is relevant to the EEMS membership, for consideration for display on the website. If anyone has information to submit to the site, or suggestions to improve the site content, please send them to me and I will pass on to Rob. The EEMS Newsletter is now produced electronically, and its main location is again the website, for the two issues, end May and end November. Contributions can include colour pictures relatively easily using this medium, and this same advantage is true for the EEMS electronic journal. This is a real bonus for many cytogenetic manuscripts, and members are encouraged to check out the journal details on the website, and to seriously consider this Society journal for publications. Rob Baan also maintains the e-mail listing for the EEMS, and would be very appreciative of all changes in address to be notified to him directly, in order to maintain a current listing. This listing can also be employed for legitimate Society mailing through Rob. The message here is that the EEMS website is live and should be checked regularly for new information, as well as used to display local new information.

EEMS currently has a healthy financial status, and a call for ideas for spending monies to the scientific benefit of the Society, and also the Special Interest Groups was made. Again, please let me know and I will pass them on.

The next EEMS meeting will be in Ghent, Belgium,1-5 September 2001; followed by Warsaw, Poland, 6-10 Sept 2002. Travel awards are possible for all EEMS meetings - see the website for further information. The Ghent details have been circulated previously; the Warsaw meeting is to be centred on DNA Damage and Repair, including plans for:
- molecular mechanisms of mutagenesis
- DNA repair proteins
- defects in DNA repair & consequences for human diseases and ageing
- etheno DNA adducts as new risk factors for disrupted genomic activity
- panel discussions

The GUM are planning a comet workshop for practitioners in Germany in July 2001.

B Elliott UK Councillor for EEMS (barry.elliott@ctl.zeneca.com)

I can report that no-one asked to receive a paper copy of the EEMS Newsletter, so I will no longer be including these in future mailings. Do make a note of the location of the electronic copy on the EEMS website (http://193.51.164.11/eems/index.htm).

Steve Dean (Secretary)

4 December 2000, London, MEG Winter meeting on the topic of infections. (Contact Jenny Duckmanton, e-mail: jmd4@york.ac.uk).

16-21 March 2001, San Diego, USA, EMS Annual meeting. (Contact David DeMarini, e-mail: demarini.david@epa.gov ).

26-29 March 2001, San Francisco, USA, 40^th SOT – see www.toxicology.org.

1-4 July 2001 (note the change), Nottingham, UKEMS Annual Scientific Meeting (Contact Mike O’Donovan, e-mail: mike.odonovan@astrazeneca.com).

8-13 July 2001, Brisbane, Australia, 9^th International Congress of Toxicology (Contact ASCEPT Secretariat, 145 Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia, Tel: +61 2 2565456; Fax: +61 2 2523310).

1-5 September 2001, Ghent, Belgium, the 31^st Annual Meeting of the EEMS "Genetic Susceptibility at Low Dose Exposure" 8CONTACT Prof H Thierens, e-mail: hubert.thierens@rug.ca.be).

13-16 September 2001, Istanbul, Turkey, Eurotox 2001 (Contact the congress secretariat, e-mail: congress@visitur.con.tr).

21-26 October 2001, Shizuoka, Japan, 8^th ICEM (Contact Dr N Kinae, University of Shizuoka, Tel:+81 54 264 5528/5526; Fax: +81 54 264 5528/5099; e-mail: kinae@fns1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp). See also www.iaems,nl/meetings.htm.

18-22 March, 2002, Nashville, USA, 41^st SOT.

1-3 July 2002, Plymouth, UKEMS Annual Scientific Meeting (Contact Awadhesh Jha)

July 2003, Aberdeen, EEMS Annual Scientific Meeting (Contact Andrew Collins)

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