Post-congress news

Arts & Science

Prof. Enrico Coen, one of our Keynote Speakers, was inspired to create these images of beauty during his stay in Riva del Garda; we thank him for sharing them with us.

Prof. Venki Ramakrishnan showed a movie of bacterial translation during his Keynote Lecture which is available at his web site in Quickime (160 MB) or WMV (49 MB) format — best viewed on your own computer (right-click on the link to download).

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the FISV Executive Council and of all the Organisers, I am glad to invite you to the forthcoming Scientific Meeting to be held in Riva del Garda, 24-27 September. To get the Programme finalized was a lot of work by many people, but I found it also a lot of fun to work with them. The Programme speaks for itself, and I hope you will take a few minutes to look at all of it.

As an incoming President, it was immediately apparent to me that Jacopo Meldolesi was a difficult act to follow: therefore we have invited him to give the first of the officially designated FISV Lectures: this will be a great occasion. The other FISV Lecture will be given by Enrico Coen of Norwich, whereas Venki Ramakrishnan of Cambridge will be our 2008 EMBO Lecturer.

The eye-catching features on the programme must be the Plenary Symposia with highly distinguished speakers: we hope that you will find the balance of topics reasonable, as we have Cancer & Development, Copy Number Variation, and Ubiquitins. At the same time, the organisers feel that Oral Communications from submitted abstracts are very important, and more than one hundred will be presented; in fact, in order to validate the notion that they are important, some will be selected for inclusion in regular Symposia: we will have eight of these, and they cover a wide range of topics important for the FISV. We expect several hundred posters, and we hope everybody will take time not only to browse along the stands with a tumbler of beer, but also to inspect the posters themselves.

I would like to make a special mention of two evening events: one on Genetically Modified Organisms, the other on Stem Cells, in which the key speaker will be Tim Townes of Birmingham, AL. Needless to say, both are hot topics, scientifically and otherwise: we will have some surprise participants in the discussions, and we are sure these will be lively.

It remains for me to thank all those who have selflessly contributed to preparing the programme. I am very much looking forward to seeing you in Riva in September, when we hope to have a record-breaking attendance.