News

Chair and Secretary’s report on 2009 Activities 

The final year as a Branch of the Institute of Biology has been very rewarding. Several of the events have been in association with other Yorkshire based Societies, as indeed has today’s excellent event. We are very pleased to acknowledge the co-operation of Dr Lynda Partridge and The Sheffield Region Immunology Group and contributions of the British Society for Immunology, Bioserv UK Ltd and Q Science Consultants Limited.

The Committee is ever mindful of the size and diversity of Yorkshire and during this year we have managed to visit some of the geographical extremes, for example Giggleswick, Whitby and Sheffield. In more detail and chronologically the main events following the Annual symposium on Fungi in November 2008 were:

25 November 2008 a lecture by Prof. Tom McLeish Should Physics get into bed with Biology at Hull University.

12 February 2009 Darwin Anniversary Dr Jeremy Pritchard a lecture with the Association of Science Education;

7 March 2009 National and Science engineering week – science fair at Leeds Museum;

29 April 2009 a Joint Lecture with Royal Society of Chemistry at York University by Dr Gillian Webb on enzymes as biocatalysts;

14 June 2009 Open Churchyard. In association with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and led by Prof. Mark Seaward an afternoon examining the lichens and plants in and on St. Alkeda’s church, Giggleswick, part of the “Yorkshire living churchyards project”;

4 July 2009 the summer social included traveling the full length of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway during which the geological and some social history of the moors were described. Arriving in Whitby we went to the Museum of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society and then time was available for ‘taking the airs’ before a subdued return to Pickering;

20 September 2009 Fungal Foray in Golden Acre Park, Leeds, led by Anne Bowers of the Mid-Yorkshire Fungus Group where, despite some confusion many fungi and other wildlife were observed in a park which was a revelation to some who lived within a few miles;

14 November 2009 Annual symposium Health, disease, diagnosis and cures: the rise of immunology. With presentations by:

Dr. Lynda Partridge “Immunology Today: What’s Hot, What’s Not”,

Dr. Neil Boonham on use of immunodiagnostics for Plant Pathology

Prof. David Pritchard on the potential benefits of hookworm infection and

Prof. Sir Gordon Duff on Translating Immunology Advances into Health Gains

An innovation during the year has been a lunch for retired members. The first was on 11 June at Thomas Danby College, Leeds. It is planned that these should be twice yearly, and the second on 5 November 2009 was also important in that the President’s medals for meritorious service were presented to two well deserving long-serving members of our Committee, Mike Sanderson and Mike Smith.

An important role of a Branch Committee is to encourage new entrants to our wonderful science, and the Branch had stands at careers fairs at the Royal Armouries, 25-26 November 2008 and on 12 February 2009 at Silcoates School, Wakefield.

As can be understood from this list of events, all members of the Committee have been very active, so much so that, as Chair, I am reluctant to pick out individuals. I thank them all. Most impressively all of the committee members have used their networks of contacts to great effect. However, I want to specially mention two of them. Both are past Chairs of the Branch. Cliff Meadows who has promoted and organised the new retired members meetings as well as organising the Fungal foray and David Coates who is moving to a new academic post in Scotland. Despite taking an important role in developing the Society of Biology, David continued as our webmaster as well as providing illuminating insights into developments at HQ. We will all miss you very much, not least for the speed of your Blackberry at providing information during Committee meetings. And thank you for the presentation earlier today on the Society of Biology. The web pages have now been updated and our Branch events, some past and for the future are advertised and illustrated as part of the new Society of Biology web site.

http://www.societyofbiology.org/branches/yorkshire

The future with the Society of Biology will be challenging, but appears to be exciting. For the moment the Branch Committees have been asked to continue as normal. However, the potential to involve the hundreds of other bioscientists from the many Organisational Members should give stimulus to an even more exciting future for this Branch.

Finally, may I make two appeals. One is on behalf of the Society of Biology - if you are a good presenter of an aspect of our science and would like to give presentations then please volunteer to be put on the database they are developing. Chris Collins is the contact for this on our Committee.

The second is for our Committee. We are not very well in touch with secondary school teaching of biology. We would very much welcome a new member who has knowledge of present day curriculums and aims of such education.  

Paul Bartlett, Chair

Nigel Mussett, Secretary.

Yorkshire Branch Society of Biology. 14 November 2009