January 2001

Dear SDB Members,

As we actually enter the Millennium, SDB has some exciting news to share with its members. The best of all is that the field of developmental biology continues to expand and significant advances are providing a better understanding of many age-old questions, including gene regulation, cell-cell interaction and factors effecting the processes of differentiation. The resulting increased interest in this field led to more people attending the SDB annual and regional meetings, and more developmental biologists joining the Society. And we hope this growth will continue with your help. If each of you invites one colleague to join SDB we will double our size immediately!

A consequence of the larger number of members, passing the 2000 mark, is the admission of SDB as a full member into the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). Having been an active associate member (non-voting society with less than 2000 members) of FASEB for four years, the SDB Board of Trustees approved the application for change of status at the last June Board meeting. The FASEB Board of Directors approved unanimously our request at its September meeting. As SDB Trustee Roger Pedersen puts it, becoming a full member is like "becoming a grown-up" and acquiring the right to vote and the responsibilities that come with this right. Our input will not stop at the public affairs level, as SDB will have representatives on the Federations Board of Directors and various committees that deal with important issues such as graduate and postdoctoral training, use of human embryonic stem cells, animal care and use etc.. Besides the advantages FASEB President, Dr. Mary Hendrix refers to in her welcome letter to SDB, a practical benefit is that SDB members will receive the FASEB Newsletter, a monthly publication that will provide the latest news on public affairs. We also will be included in the FASEB Membership Directory, both the online and printed versions. This gives additional exposure for our members, as we will be with other 16 FASEB societies whose members have related interests. Since developmental biology is an interdisciplinary field, many of our members have interests in different areas; now they will be able to attend Experimental Biology (EB) meetings at the reduced member rate. An important continued benefit is eligibility to apply for FASEBs MARC travel awards to attend SDB annual meetings and to Visiting Scientists for Minority Institutions program (please see details at www.faseb.org).

We have seen a continuing increase in the number of participants attending SDB Annual Meetings, ever since Past-president Dave McClay spearheaded a change in the format of these meetings in 1993. The previous annual symposia with a targeted theme were made into inclusive meetings with a broad range of topics and sessions where junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows and senior graduate students have a chance to give platform presentations. This change was one of the many initiatives Dave and the Board of Trustees carried out after the SDB membership voted not to merge with the American Society for Cell Biology and gave the BOT a mandate to strengthen SDB and its goal of "promoting communication among students of development." This format has since provided a forum for presentation of some of the latest and most exciting new discoveries in the field, including human embryonic stem cells.

Another strong means of communication is this excellent and extremely useful Website created and maintained by Laurie Iten (www.sdbonline.org). This was one of the first activities sponsored by the SDB Education Committee and supported by the Board of Trustees. It has become a means for our members to showcase their research and invite exchange of ideas with others in the field. The site is also a place where some courses, tips and suggestions for teaching developmental biology are posted, where non-specialists may ask questions about developmental biology and find links to interesting aspects of the field. Our plans are to add this "From the SDB Office" section to the site and post information concerning the societys activities from the national office, as well as SDBs bylaws and history. This site will replace the printed quarterly SDB newsletter that you used to receive. If you have news about issues or members of SDB that you would like to share with the rest of the Society, please forward the information (with photo, if possible) to the office. If deemed appropriate, we will post it.

We welcome any comments and recommendations you may have to make YOUR Society even better and serve your needs more efficiently.

Have a great year!

Ida