Meetings that may be of interest to the yeast community are listed below:

20th Annual Southeastern Regional Yeast Meeting (SERYM)
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham AL
March 8 - 10, 2013

British Yeast Group Meeting - BYG2013
Nottingham, UK
March 20 - 22, 2013


30th International Specialised Symposium on Yeast (ISSY)
Stara Lesna, Slovakia
June 18 - 22, 2013


YEAST 2013: 26th International Conference on Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology
Frankfurt University, Frankfurt, Germany
August 29 - September 3, 2013

Yeast Genetics & Molecular Biology Meeting
University of Washington, Seattle WA
July 29 - August 3, 2014

Some 1500 laboratory professionals, clinicians, program managers, epidemiologists, researchers, students, and policy makers will convene in Cape Town, South Africa from December 1-7, 2012 for the First International Conference of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM).

The objective of this meeting is to convene healthcare professionals and policy makers from Africa and around the world to present and discuss the latest developments and initiatives for strengthening national laboratory health systems and networks, diagnostics, and their impact on healthcare delivery and disease surveillance.
Click here for the conference Program-at-a-Glance.

The conference will address a wide range of laboratory-related subject areas with particular emphasis on: translation of laboratory knowledge, practices, and technologies into clinical care; the interface of laboratory with medical science; laboratory-based epidemiology; and laboratory investigations and evidence-based effectiveness in real world settings.

Specifically, the conference will provide a forum for:

• Problem-solving to improve access to, regulation of, and policy regarding quality point of care laboratory diagnostics for quality health care in Africa and elsewhere.
• Discussing ways to strengthen laboratory-based surveillance, biosafety, and biosecurity, and to reduce antimicrobial resistance.
• Prioritizing and enhancing mobilization and utilization of resources for local capacity.
• Operationalizing laboratory research to meet evolving disease needs in the 21st century.
• Exchanging knowledge, skills, and best practices to improve access to high quality laboratory services.
• Sharing experiences on establishing functional laboratory networks for disease-specific needs and for multiple diseases.

ASLM2012 will feature plenary sessions, oral and poster presentations, and symposia. The official languages of the meeting are English, French, and Portuguese and simultaneous translation will be available during the plenary sessions.

At the completion of this meeting, participants should be able to:

1. Assess their individual efforts in light of the most current knowledge and information about laboratory medicine.
2. Incorporate best practices emerging from laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological research and implementation science into their professional endeavours.
3. Translate the latest laboratory and clinical evidence into making progress towards the advancement of professional laboratory medicine practice, science, systems, and networks in Africa.

Economic growth and stability, standard of living, social inclusion, development of human capital, critical infrastructure, urbanization, industrialization, human rights and jobs for the nation are among the ideals and realities faced by most nations and governments in our current world. However, the benefits of economic welfare are frequently accompanied by increased pressure on the natural environment and resources. High levels and volumes of pollution and waste are released into marine ecosystems, especially near urban areas. Taking into account that 21 of the 33 mega cities of the world are located on coastlines, high volume discharges present a major threat to the health and well-being of marine life, including cetacean species.

A conference on “Structural Biology for the Bioeconomy: Infectious Diseases and Biotechnology” will be held at the University of Cape Town from 1 December to 2012 to 4 December 2012. The conference will immediately precede the annual conference of the Microscopy Society of Southern Africa (4-7 December 2012) and will be held in the same venue on the University of Cape Town campus.  The conference website is http://www.sbbe.co.za and more about the organisers can be found here: http://www.sbbe.co.za/structural-biology-conference-organisers/

One of the objectives of SASM as a society is to further knowledge in the various microbiological disciplines and all areas in which it may be applied and to create channels of communication between members who share common interests. As you probably would have observed after an extended lag phase there has been a constant stream of communication from SASM via email recently, but did you know that on the social media front our presence has just started an exponential growth phase?. This new communication phenotype of SASM, who recently evolved into a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, has however not reached any viral proportions by far. The diagnosis: it appears our community's quorum sensing response has not kicked in yet and the potential cascade signalling networks is still somewhat feedback inhibited.

On a more serious note, we would like to encourage all SASM members (and potential future members) to join SASM's social media network on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. We intend to enrich the basic weekly email communications with cross-platform postings of news, informative articles and society-related events. Enthusiastic participation and interaction by members is vital for this endeavour to be successful. Our fundamental aim is to create the space where microbiologists from different fields all over South Africa can get involved in sharing news, discussions, idea/knowledge-sharing or just create general awareness of the microbiology landscape in South Africa. So comment on our blog posts, like us on Facebook, tweet and retweet us on Twitter or circle us on Google+.

Don't forget, registered paid-up members also have access to the SASM forum where more discussions and news can be found. As an example, a valuable resource on the SASM forum is the Available Positions section where we will host advertisements of available job offers relevant to our members.

The journal Microscopy and Analysis, launched on 1 September 1987, is celebrating their 25^th anniversary!  A free issue of the journal, featuring the huge advancement in the development and capabilities of all forms of microscopy reviewed by nine world-leading microscopists on light, electron and scanning probe microscopy, is now available! As mentioned by the editor, Dr Julian Heath, this edition is definitely one to keep!

News from NewScientist

Craig Venter helped crack the human genome, created the first synthetic cell and has scoured the sea for novel genomes. Now he has set his sights on Mars. Earlier this week at the Wired Health Conference in New York, he outlined plans to send a robotically controlled genome-sequencing unit, or "biological teleporter", to the Red Planet in order to sequence the genome of alien life that may be there. He's not the first to suggest doing this. Do any of these missions stand a chance?

How will Venter's scheme work?
In short, he wants to send machinery to Mars that can robotically sift through Martian soil to isolate any microbes it contains, sequence their DNA and then beam the digitised results back to Earth. These would be used to create a synthetic version of the Martian genome, which could then be used to recreate Martian life on Earth – all without having to deal with the difficulties of actually bringing the sample back.

Read more...by Colin Barras and Lisa Grossman, NewScientist, 19 October 2012
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Some upcoming Microbiology-related conferences for 2013/2014.

On the SASM website we try to accurately collate all of the relevant microbiology links for easy access to our members. However, the microbiology academic landscape in South Africa changes relatively quickly, with departmental name changes, amalgamation of departments and contact detail changes etc.

We would really like to urge all SASM members to visit the "

Letter from the President of the newly established South African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (SASBi)

"Dear Colleague

It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the newly established South African Society for Bioinformatics (SASBi). The Society’s first AGM was held during the “Joint Conference of South African Genetics & Bioinformatics Societies: The Data-mining Revolution” in Stellenbosch on 11 September 2012.

We are at the door of a promising future for bioinformatics in South Africa. Bioinformatics is accelerating and gaining momentum throughout the world due to the flood of biological data that needs to be analysed, and which can lead to exciting breakthroughs.

Bioinformatics is interdisciplinary. Thus, our aim includes establishing links and promoting cooperation between the Society and related societies in South Africa and throughout the world. SASBi, as a voice for the bioinformatics community in the country, would like to enhance interactions among people related to bioinformatics.

The Council comprises:

• President: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (RU)
• Vice President: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (UWC)
• Secretary: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (UP)
• Treasurer: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (UP)
• Conferences: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (SUN)
• Public Relations: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.(UCT)
• Web-master: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.(UP)

For further information, please see our web page (http://www.bioinformatics.org.za/), even though it is still under development."

The original letter can be downloaded (see attached pdf file)