Founded | December 29, 1949 |
---|---|
Founder | Walter Ezekiel, Charles Thom, and Charles L. Porter |
Type | PO |
Focus | Microbiology, especially applications in industrial products, biotechnology, materials, and processes |
Location | |
Origins | Advertised meeting at AAAS conference in New York City |
Area served | Worldwide |
Method | Conferences, Publications |
Key people | Noel Fong, President Nigel Mouncey, President-Elect Steve Decker, Past-President Christine Lowe, Executive DirectorContents |
Website | www |
The Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) is a nonprofit, international association dedicated to the advancement of microbiological sciences, especially as they apply to industrial products, biotechnology, materials, and processes. SIMB promotes the exchange of scientific information through its meetings and publications, and serves as liaison among the specialized fields of microbiology. SIMB was established in 1949 as the Society for Industrial Microbiology (SIM) by Walter Ezekiel, Charles Thom, and Charles L. Porter. [1]
The SIMB is governed by a Constitution and Bylaws. The membership of SIMB elects a Board of Directors that consists of a President, President-Elect, Past-President, Secretary, Treasurer and four Directors. [2]
SIMB has two publications, the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology and SIMB News . [3]
The first Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals was held in 1978 and hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, TN). It was the first technical meeting focusing exclusively on the biotechnologically-‐mediated conversion of renewable feedstocks, especially lignocellulosic plant biomass, to fuels and chemicals. This annual meeting soon became large enough to be co-‐hosted by the predecessor of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden, CO) and the Symposium's location alternated yearly between Tennessee and Colorado. In 2008, SIMB began handling the logistics of the meeting and locations were expanded to include other states, with the Symposium being held in alternate years in the eastern or western United States.
Although there has been a steady decline in natural product discovery efforts in the pharmaceutical industry over the last three decades, natural product chemical scaffolds have continued to yield important human antimicrobial agents, immunomodulators, and antitumor agents, as well as plant crop protectants. Natural product discovery is currently undergoing a renaissance based to a large extent on the observations from microbial genome sequencing projects indicating that only a fraction of the potential microbial secondary metabolites from actinomycetes, other eubacteria, and fungi have been discovered so far, and that most secondary metabolite pathways are not expressed under normal laboratory growth conditions. However, the new discipline of “genome mining” has been exploring ways to activate the expression of these “cryptic pathways.”
1949–51 Charles Thom (2 terms)
1951–52 Benjamin Duggar
1952–53 Kenneth B. Raper
1953–54 James Horsfall
1954–56 Boyd Woodruff (2 terms)
1956–57 J.M. McGuire
1957–58 C.W. Hesseltine
1958–59 Charles Porter
1959–60 Charles C. Yeager
1960–61 Arthur M. Kaplan
1961–62 Frederick Kavanagh
1962–63 Eugene L. Dulaney
1963–64 Brinton Miller
1964–65 Gaylen Bradley
1965–66 John N. Porter
1966–67 Saul Rich
1967–68 Leland A. Underkofler
1968–69 Robert W. Squires
1969–70 Morris R. Rogers
1970–71 John H. Litchfield
1971–72 Donal C. Wehner
1972–73 Michael A. Pisano
1973–74 Richard P. Elander
1974–75 William W. Leathen
1975–76 W. Max Stark
1976–77 Edward O. Stapley
1977–78 Robert L. Huddleston
1978–79 Allen I. Laskin
1979–80 Paul A. Lemke
1980–81 Raymond T. Testa
1981–82 Bernard J. Abbott
1982–83 Donald G. Ahearn
1983–84 C. Herb Ward
1984–85 Claude H. Nash
1985–86 George A. Somkuti
1986–87 Robert F. Acker
1987–88 Robert T. Belly
1988–89 C. George Hollis
1989–90 Paula Myers–Keith
1990–91 Arnold L. Demain
1991–92 Robert D. Schwartz
1992–93 Joseph J. Cooney
1993–94 Jennie C. Hunter–Cevera
1994–95 Edward J. Arcuri
1995–96 Steve Orndorff
1996–97 Harold Rossmoore
1997–98 Linda Lasure
1998–99 LaVerne Boeck
1999–00 Vincent Gullo
2000–01 Kristien Mortelmans
2001–02 Joan W. Bennett
2002–03 Ann C. Horan
2003–04 Douglas Jaeger
2004–05 Richard Baltz
2005–06 Jeffrey Schwartz
2006–07 Paul Cino
2007–08 Carol D. Litchfield
2008–09 George Pierce
2009–10 Susan T. Bagley
2010–11 Badal Saha
2011–12 Neal Connors
2012–13 Thomas Jeffries
2013–14 Leonard Katz
2014–15 E. Timothy Davies
2015–16 Scott Baker
2016–17 George Garrity
2017–18 Debbie Yaver
2018–19 Steve Van Dien
2019–20 Janet Westpheling
2020-21 Steve Decker
SIMB's awards include the following: [9]
In biochemistry, a metabolite is an intermediate or end product of metabolism. The term is usually used for small molecules. Metabolites have various functions, including fuel, structure, signaling, stimulatory and inhibitory effects on enzymes, catalytic activity of their own, defense, and interactions with other organisms.
Industrial fermentation is the intentional use of fermentation in manufacturing processes. In addition to the mass production of fermented foods and drinks, industrial fermentation has widespread applications in chemical industry. Commodity chemicals, such as acetic acid, citric acid, and ethanol are made by fermentation. Moreover, nearly all commercially produced industrial enzymes, such as lipase, invertase and rennet, are made by fermentation with genetically modified microbes. In some cases, production of biomass itself is the objective, as is the case for single-cell proteins, baker's yeast, and starter cultures for lactic acid bacteria used in cheesemaking.
The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is a scientific user facility for integrative genomic science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The mission of the JGI is to advance genomics research in support of the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) missions of energy and the environment. It is one of three national scientific user facilities supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) within the Department of Energy's Office of Research. These BER facilities are part of a more extensive network of 28 national scientific user facilities that operate at the DOE national laboratories.
Jay D. Keasling is a professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also associate laboratory director for biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and chief executive officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. He is considered one of the foremost authorities in synthetic biology, especially in the field of metabolic engineering.
Joan Wennstrom Bennett is a fungal geneticist who also is active in issues concerning women in science. Educated at Upsala College and the University of Chicago, she was on the faculty of Tulane University for 35 years. She is a past president of the American Society for Microbiology (1990-1991) and of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (2001-2002), and past Editor in Chief of Mycologia (2000-2004). She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2005.
Sporolides A and B are polycyclic macrolides extracted from the obligate marine bacterium Salinispora tropica, which is found in ocean sediment. They are composed of a chlorinated cyclopenta[a]indene ring and a cyclohexenone moiety. They were the second group of compounds isolated from Salinispora, and were said to indicate the potential of marine actinomycetes as a source of novel secondary metabolites. The structures and absolute stereochemistries of both metabolites were elucidated using a combination of NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography.
Arnold L. Demain was an American microbiologist. During his 60-year career, he gained a reputation in the field of industrial microbiology. He was the Professor of Industrial Microbiology in the Biology Department at MIT and Founder and Head of Department of Fermentation Microbiology at Merck & Co. The August 2010 edition of The Journal of Antibiotics celebrated his scientific career. Demain was described as "one of the world's leading industrial microbiologists" and as "a scientist constantly in the forefront of industrial microbiology and biotechnology." He was "a pioneer in research on the elucidation and regulation of the biosynthetic pathways leading to the penicillins and cephalosporins" and "instrumental in the development of the beta-lactam industry". One feature of Demain's work, according to Microbiology Australia, was his "ability to undertake fundamental research on systems with clear industrial applications, recognising that biodiscovery is the start of the road that includes strain improvement to achieve levels of product synthesis that warrant further investment to take products into the marketplace."
Charles Thom was an American microbiologist and mycologist. Born and raised in Illinois, he received his PhD from the University of Missouri, the first such degree awarded by that institution. He was best known for his work on the microbiology of dairy products and soil fungi, and in particular his research into the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium. His work influenced the establishment of standards for food handling and processing in the USA. He pioneered the use of culture media to grow microorganisms, and, with food chemist James N. Currie, developed a process to mass-produce citric acid using Aspergillus. Thom played an important role in the development of penicillin in World War II.
James C. Liao is the Parsons Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles and is the co-founder and lead scientific advisor of Easel Biotechnologies, LLC.
The Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE) is an interdisciplinary research, education, and technology transfer institution located on the central campus of Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. The center was founded in April 1990 as the Center for Interfacial Microbial Process Engineering with a grant from the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The CBE integrates faculty from multiple university departments to lead multidisciplinary research teams—including graduate and undergraduate students—to advance fundamental biofilm knowledge, develop beneficial uses for microbial biofilms, and find solutions to industrially relevant biofilm problems. The center tackles biofilm issues including chronic wounds, bioremediation, and microbial corrosion through cross-disciplinary research and education among engineers, microbiologists and industry.
Penicillium commune is an indoor fungus belonging to the genus Penicillium. It is known as one of the most common fungi spoilage moulds on cheese. It also grows on and spoils other foods such as meat products and fat-containing products like nuts and margarine. Cyclopiazonic acid and regulovasine A and B are the most important mycotoxins produced by P. commune. The fungus is the only known species to be able to produce both penitrem A and roquefortine. Although this species does not produce penicillin, it has shown to have anti-pathogenic activity. There are no known plant, animal or human diseases caused by P. commune.
Banwari Lal is an Indian environmental and industrial biotechnologist and the director of the Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology Division at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Known for the development of oilzapper technology, Dr. Lal is the chief executive officer of ONGC-TERI Biotech Limited, a collaborative venture between TERI and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation since 2008. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2004. He have many Indian and international joint patents with ONGC, DBT, IOCL, OIL INDIA and TERI.
Kristala Jones Prather is an American professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research is focused on using novel bioprocesses to design recombinant microorganisms to produce small molecules.
Jonathan Richard Lloyd is a professor of geomicrobiology and director of the Williamson Research Centre for Molecular Environmental Science, and is based in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester. His research is based at the interface between microbiology, geology and chemistry. His research focuses on the mechanisms of microbial metal-reduction, with emphasis on the environmental impact and biotechnological applications of metal-reducing bacteria. Some of the contaminants he studies include As, Tc, Sr, U, Np and Pu. Current activities are supported by funds from NERC, BBSRC, EPSRC, the EU and industry. Lloyd is also a senior visiting fellow at the National Nuclear Laboratory, which helps support the development of a nuclear geomicrobiology programme.
Geoffrey Michael Gadd is a British-Irish microbiologist and mycologist specializing in geomicrobiology, geomycology, and bioremediation. He is currently a professor at the University of Dundee, holding the Boyd Baxter Chair of Biology, and is head of the Geomicrobiology Group.
Lone Gram is Danish microbiologist known for her work in bacterial physiology, microbial communication, and biochemicals that originate from bacterial cultures. She is an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and has received the Order of the Dannebrog.
Microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) use microorganisms as electrochemical catalyst, merging the microbial metabolism with electrochemical processes for the production of bioelectricity, biofuels, H2 and other valuable chemicals. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) and microbial electrolysis cells (MEC) are prominent examples of METs. While MFC is used to generate electricity from organic matter typically associated with wastewater treatment, MEC use electricity to drive chemical reactions such as the production of H2 or methane. Recently, microbial electrosynthesis cells (MES) have also emerged as a promising MET, where valuable chemicals can be produced in the cathode compartment. Other MET applications include microbial remediation cell, microbial desalination cell, microbial solar cell, microbial chemical cell, etc.,.
Willis Avery “Woody” Wood was an American microbiology professor, an inventor, and an entrepreneur. He was the president of the American Society for Microbiology in 1980. Wood was known for his research on bacterial enzymes and the molecular biology of sugars and amino acids.
Robert Lyman Starkey was an American microbiologist. He was the president of the American Society for Microbiology in 1963.