Flash Overview
2. Final Conclusion:
3. Time Sequence of Discussion:
Foundation of a European Federation of Cytometric Societies (EFCS) carried by the various national European cytometric societies but potentially also by formally established cytometric working groups. ACP, as a well introduced scientific journal, could serve the new federation as publication platform. EFCS members would be optionally constituted by members of national cytometric societies but equally by former ESACP members who are in favour of the new concept. EFCS would be open to other cytometrically interested scientists from inside and outside Europe. EFCS, in contrast to ISAC would, however, not have the goal to expand to a representative global membership. EFCS would center on clinical as well as on basic cytometric research in flow and image cytometry with a focus on European issues.
Biomedical image cytometry is organized in national, European or international societies but also in interest groups.
The various organizational forms actively promote the development of cytometry in Europe at the scientific and educational level. There exists, however, no general forum for joint scientific presentation, information exchange and discussion of the numerous efforts in clinical and basic research cytometry in the different European countries. This is not optimal since one of the essential features for the efficient development of cytometry has always been the multidisciplinary contact at international meetings. This is especially true for the European environment e.g. with its urgent need for the harmonization of clinical cytometry.
- Links amongst the different societies will be:
Letter of: F.Sansonetty, Sep.26, 1996
.... I understand your ideas, I fully support them, I will do my best to
collaborate and I am prepared to promote them. In the following illustrations
(see next three pages), I do not pretend to send you original ideas but
I only try to summarize some of them
I think, we can say, that presently, many "local" research and clinical
groups are reinventing the "wheel" ...that they are trying to extrapolate
results with small series ... not using consensus ... and so on
Let's join efforts to generate efficient European Data Bases, with
information that, with more probability, may be able to definitively
(I hope), produce more "consistent knowledge", ... with less local
efforts and costs, or at least meaning best community investments.
M.G.Ormerod, Oct.3,1996
.... I took your proposals to the RMS Cytometry Section Committee today.
They were not very enthusiastic.
They would be prepared to support a European Federation of national
societies.
However, they thought that people in the UK would be unlikely
to join as individual members. They felt that their national interest
was served by the RMS and their international interests by ISAC.
Letter of: J.K.Larsen, Nov.1, 1996
... Thank you for your letter concerning the intended foundation of
a European Federation of Cytometric Societies (EFCS). I can assure
you that the Danish Society for Flow Cytometry is interested in
your concept and would like to participate in the discussion.
I think it is a fine idea to found the EFCS during the 5th
ESACP congress.
G.Valet, Nov.19, 1996
.... with a substantial number of positive oral and written comments
for the foundation of a Federation of European Cytometric societies (FECS),
it seems appropriate to open a discussion forum. ....
...The discussion forum will be set up as an electronic mailing list.
... I am presently collecting constitutions and bylaws of other
European or International Federations or Unions of scientific societies.
They will be displayed at the EFCS discussion group web-site for information.
If you are a member of a federation or have otherwise access to such
documents, please send me a good quality copy by high resolution fax or
preferentially by mail to OCR the document into the web-site.
G.Valet, Nov.22,1996
.... due to the abbreviation coincidences of FECS with two
existing European federations of scientific societies, the preliminary
file names of the Internet web-site have been changed
to permutations of EFCS i.e. the web browser bookmark
should now be set to:
http://www.biochem.mpg.de/valet/efcs.html
This file contains the two present links to:
.../efcsrat1.html
and
.../efcsadr1.html
Letter of: J.W.Gray, Nov.22, 1996
.... I am writing in regard to your efforts to found a European Federation
of Cytometric Societies. I hope that I and ISAC might work together
with you in this venture to ensure that the two organizations are
complementary. I understand completely your interest in establishing
a European cytometry network that can deal effectively with local issues,
especially in the area of clinical cytometry. I hope that ISAC might
support and participate in this effort. I am particularly concerned
about the journal issue and am anxious to ensure, to the extent
possible, that your plans for the ACP are meshed and complimentary
to those that Jan Visser may have for Cytometry as he assumes
it's editorship. The purpose of this letter is not to deter you
from your efforts, but rather to open a dialogue so that we can ensure
that the organization you plan is complimentary to, and supported
by ISAC. I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.
J.L. D'Hautcourt, Nov.24, 1996
...I will hereafter present you the french proposals (AFC). These height points
have been submitted and accepted by our general assembly during our last
meeting in Rouen 16-18 octobre 96.
I) The new association could be a "Union" like the IUIS (International Union
of Immunological Societies) but, of course, for Europe thus E.U.I.S.
This union will not have any power at the national level.
Representatives of each national society, in proportion of their members,
will constitued the board of the "Union".
II) This "Union" could only have as members, the national societies
themself, and not their individual members.
III) The financial powers of this "Union" would come from the contribution
of each member societies who could contribute in proportion of the number
of their own members (for exemple 3 to 5 EURO's by member seem enough)
IV) In a first time, this money would essentially be used for the support,
the new orientation of the scope and the improvement of the ACP journal
which could become the link between the national societes.
V) The subscription to the journal "ACP" would be made at a special low
rate, exclusively for the members of national societies, but in no case this
subscription will be mandatory.
VI) The editorial board would be progressively modified to offer a better
national representation and also taking into account the new orientations of
the Journal.
VII) The other activities of the "Union" could be the starting of an
internet site, concerted actions in the field of accreditation, QC,
standardisation ...
VIII) (added by the AG of AFC members) The aggrement of participation will
be made first for an evaluation period.
M.G.Ormerod, Nov.25,1996
I would personally support these proposals. They will need to be
considered at the next meeting of the Cytometry Section Committee
of the Royal Microscopical Society.
H.E.Danielsen, Nov.25, 1996
Response to Dr.D'Hautcourt's email
ACP:
General Comments:
... Is it not possible for the different national societies to sign
collective membership with ESACP - giving each national society
member a serious discount on the membership fee, but the same rights as
every member? This is a very common organisational structure, at least in
the nordic countries. The advantages are the same - increasing the membership
and thereby official grant and support. In this way each national society
will have their proportional weight in all matters within ESACP - provided
that they have active members themselves! In a federation, one often sees
that single persons representing large organizations get a lot of
power and influence, regardless of whether that organization
is active inside the federation or not.
There is a number of important aspects that has to be looked into, but from
where I stand, the federation idea does not seem to be better
than what we have today.
G.Valet, Nov.26,1996
Concerning
Dr.Danielsen's
comments, I believe the issues of EFCS foundation and ESACP organisation
should be treated at present separately. If there will be a
strong feeling for the formation of a federation or union of cytometric
societies as well as a strong feeling of ESACP members to remain a
separate entity of such an intersociety association, I am convinced
that an entity can be built which will suit most of the needs.
From the emergence of a federation or union of societies out of ESACP
until the adherence of ESACP to a new association of societies, various
organizational models are conceivable.
The discussion should therefore focus at the present primarily
on the issue whether the foundation of an association of cytometric
societies in Europe based on the thoughts in the original
position paper
and on additional thoughts .... seems promising and useful.
H.E.Danielsen, Nov.27, 1996
I DO NOT AGREE! I DO NOT THINK THAT THERE WILL BE ROOM FOR BOTH ESACP AND A
NEW FEDERATION IN EUROPE, AND THEREFORE THAT ANY DECISIONS MADE IN FAVOUR OF
A FEDERATION WILL HAVE IMPACT ON ESACP. FOR THIS REASON I WILL STRONGLY URGE
EVERYONE NOT TO TREAT THIS SEPARATELY!
AS ALREADY STATED, THESE ISSUES SHOULD NOT BE SEPARATED! PLEASE ALLOW US TO
USE "YOUR" COMMUNICATION "CHANNEL" TO AIR OUR CONCERNS FOR ESACP. IT IS NOT
GIVEN THAT A FEDERATION IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF ESACP!
J.L.D'Hautcourt, Nov.27,1996
....Concerning Dr.Danielsen's comments on my
proposals
and the response of
G.Valet,
I will give to all of you some more details.
I agree with Dr.Danielsen when he writes that "there will be no room for both
ESACP and a new federation in Europe". But I think that the problem is not
there because my goal is not to create competition of ESACP with
a new European federation. It is evident for many of us that the ESACP
has promoted a lot of good actions like the journal ACP, some good meetings,
and the publication of DNA consensus.... But it is also true that with only
260 members ESACP does not represent the European cytometry community
(many national societies have more than 260 members!).
So, our proposals are made to save the best realizations of ESACP
and not to help ESACP to survive. The national societies with
an official constitution represent many more than 1000 members.
I will here ask to all my colleagues acting as president of their society
to present my proposals to their boards and/or to their general assembly to
confirm what we want to do in this forum. I will also ask them to put on the
Net the number of members of their societies. If, what I hope becomes a
consensus, then the ESACP board must decide what they will and afterwards
eventually we can continue the discussion to improve our first proposals for
the best of the European cytometric community.
G.Valet Nov.28,1996
The Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Zytometrie (DGZ) has presently
around 250 members, most of them being either clinical or
research scientists.
Letter of: O.L.Laerum, Nov.28, 1996
.... I have read carefully your
letter and the draft, and feel that this would be a good step
forwards. I think that a federation would give a better organisation
of cytometry in Europe than the present European organisation.
However, I agree that one still should have the possibility for
individual membership in the new organisation, since so far not all
countries have their own national cytometry society. For example
this applies to Norway.
I also think it would be wise for the new European organisation to
have an affiliation to ISAC, since this is also the case with other
regional cytometry organisations.
G.Brugal, Nov.28,1996
...In my opinion, the question whether we will go with both the new European
Union of National Cytometry Societies (Say EUNMS) AND the existing ESACP or
whether we will replace the ESACP (mainly aiming at pathology) by the EUNMS
having a much broader scope (aiming at both medical and biological
cytometry in addition to technical and fundamental aspects of cytometry) is
l and fundamental aspects of cytometry) is
not wise.
As the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Analytical Cellular Pathology, I
would like to bring in the following arguments:
J.Watson, Nov.29,1996
.... In principle I'm sure an European Union/Federation of Cytometry
Societies is a good idea. However, I'm not quite sure how
Gerard Brugel
got to his acronym EUNMS. Shouldn't this be EUNCS
(European Union of National Cytometry Societies)....
Seriously though, I have some grave reservations about how such a
union/federation will work, what its function will be, what it will
actually do, what it is likely to achieve, how it will be administered and,
most important of all, how it will be funded.
A similar type of organisation exists in ISAC which is called "The
Council of Associated Societies". Although this Council was formed with
very good intentions it has, unfortunately, been singularly ineffective (I
should know, I'm Chairman) and a number of strategic and organisational
difficulties can be identified. These include insufficiently well defined
terms of reference, some over ambitious and unachievable goals (including
the STEP program), undefined needs of the National Members who make up the
Council, major National philosophical differences towards such
things as "standardisation", a complete lack of "statutary" powers (the dog
can bite but it hasn't got teeth) and most important of all poor
communications. These various problems are being addressed by ISAC and
some are soluble. Great strides have been made in the communications arena
with more people on the internet and this appears to be one of the potential
strengths of this proposed organisation judging by the number of e-mails
flying around.
Before we get too embroilled in the "politics" of the proposed
federation, for example who should be "in" or "out" (i.e. can Countries who
do not have a National Society be admitted etc,) perhaps we should address
the reservations I've outlined in my second paragraph ?
G.Valet Nov.29,1996
... Jim
very correctly mentions the relative inefficiency of the
"Council of Affiliated and Federated Societies" which since
the ISACXVIII meeting in Rimini in May 1996 is known under
the name "Council of Associated Societies". ISAC promotes this
activity in a global sense because the council addresses in principle
all cytometric societies and UNO may serve as an analogy.
A federation or union of European national societies with
the goals defined in:
http://www.biochem.mpg.de/valet/efcsrat1.html
has a clear orientation corresponding to the visible
integration of the different European countries into the EU.
Without claiming that the EU is perfectly organized, it is clear that
Europe even in science has been very much reshaped over the last
few years. More and more funds are administrated by Brussels and
even the national scientific organizations in the various countries like
CNRS, DFG, MRC, Max-Planck-Society etc. are presently being gradually
reshaped. The EU in science is therefore no vision but a fast
coming reality which has to be addressed efficiently by discipline oriented
scientific organisations like the cytometric national societies in order
to suffice to the organizational needs in Europe.
I believe therefore that the efforts for the foundation of a European
federation or union of cytometric societies should not be measured with
or be related too closely to the certainly important efforts of ISAC to
achieve global coordination in cytometry.
G.Valet Nov.29,1996
... The refreshing part of this discussion is that we all have
strong ideas but we are not really "biased" by now. To add a little
bit to the acronym confusion we could also think of a European
Society for Cytometry (ESC) or European Cytometry Society (ECS)
instead of a federation or union. This offers the advantage
of having personal and corporate members (e.g. national
cytometric societies, working groups) in the same association. Whether
ESC/ECS emerges from ESACP or whether ESACP would be a corporate member
of ESC/ECS would have to be determined.
A counterargument could be that ESC/ECS and the national
societies would then compete for the same members. This may be to
some extent true but since ESC/ECS by definition treats cytometry issues
of European concern, I would not think that this could constitute a serious
problem to national cytometric societies.
My personal tendency is to have then ESC/ECS emerge from ESACP
as the simplest solution. ESC/ECS foundation would clearly offer a
better access for scientists from European countries without
cytometric societies, a problem which has been convincingly outlined by
Havard Danielsen and by
Ole Laerum.
We would also avoid the inactive "old guys club" into
which a federation or union may indeed turn after a while.
A.Orfao, Nov.29, 1996
... I am trying to answer the questions of
Jean Luc,
regarding the national societies. The Iberian Society of Cytometry
currently has over 200 members and the executive board will address
the situation of the proposed EUNCS the next 14th of December. Thus an
official position will be taken probably at that meeting. My personal
opinion has already been circulated.
G.Valet, Dec.12, 1996
... the mailing list has become active today. It should facilitate the
EFCS discussion because messages have only to be sent to
the mailserver
in order to be automatically redistributed to all members of
the discussion forum.
... In continuation of the earlier discussion, I believe, a main topic is
how the structure of a European association of cytometric societies
should be. Once this point is clarified, it will be much easier to think
about the details.
In my recollection there are so far two models:
I would encourage comments to these and earlier topics by all of you.
It is clear that the idea of the foundation of a European cytometry
association has not been officially discussed in some of
the national societies. In so far much of this discussion represents
personal views. These views should, however, be presented early on
because they bring out the problems which have to be solved.
... during the last AFC board meeting we have discussed again my
proposals, taking into account your comments. It is obvious for some of us
that some points could be updated in their formulation but we stay on ours
position for their content. I have taken this opportunity to ask to the
AFC secretary the exact number of members. December 1st there were
321 ordinary members and 29 corporate members.
Responding Prof. G.K.
Valet's
mail of 12 Dec 96 12:21 I'm definitively in favour of the first model,
an Union. There are numerous reasons for that, the principal ones
are:
First: As G.
Brugal says in his mail of 28/11/96 17:53 :
Second: The NCS have a long tradition of democracy with periodical
elections, annual general assembly and published status. They also publish
many information letters for their members all along the year.
Third: The board members of NCS, very often have proved their ability
to manage a society in terms of administration but also in terms of scientific
initiatives. Althought many of them are not always recognized as the best
scientists in the field, they promote collaboration between experts.
Fourth: Regarding the problem of countries without national societies,
I will point out the fact that if we need a European Organisation involved in
all fields of cytometry, we must provide to it enough financial power to
defend the interrests of all the cytometrists (doing basic research or
clinical applications). I don't think this is possible if only 260
pathologists agree to pay a little bit more than the subscription to the
ACP journal as it is now. But that becomes true if NCS pay for more than,
may be, two thousands european cytometrists. So, I consider if the NCS can
mobilize most of the cytometrists, it seems normal that they have also the
major responsabilities of the orientation of the union.
Of course we must organise something acceptable and democratic for the
people of the countries without NCS, but only if they don't have the
opportunity to adhere to a national society.
I would suggest that Guenter Valet make the ESACP directory available on a
national basis to see, by comparing with NCS directory, how many ESACP
members are orphans of NCS in countries with or without NCS.
G.Valet, Dec.16,1996
... The Federation or Union is certainly attractive for its clearcut
organisational structure.
As suggested earlier, ESACP in such a concept could remain the
organizational cristallization point for histo- and cytopathology
at the European level and constitute one of the member societies of a
European cytometry association. ACP editorial board could be either shared
or a histo- and cytopathological section could be established like e.g.
Cytometry/CCC.
Like you, I hope for comments especially from those who did not yet
communicate their thoughts.
... the idea to found a European Cytometric Society (ECS) has been disussed
at the general meeting of the German Cytometric Society (DGZ). Although final
decisions have not been made, the plenary agreed in supporting attempts
to found a ECS and authorised the board members to enter into discussion
on structure and scope of such a society.
That a ECS should support scientific exchange and should catalyse
cooperation is nearly not worth mentioning. But there is still a strong
need for such activities at European level, particularly in the
non-biomedical fields in which only few members of national societies
are working. The existence of national societies provides sufficient
evidence of their necessity. We do not need further scientific
justifications for an improved European cooperation.
I rather would like to address the strategic and political options a ECS
would have. Cytometry means more than simply applying tools. It is a
discipline of its own as it essentially contributes to our conceptual
understanding of cellular functions, dynamics and heterogeneity. But
this aspect has not yet been recognised by the majority of the
scientific community and even less by those in charge of scientific
administration. This is witnessed, for instance, by the experiences many
of us have made that articles or grant applications were rejected by
referees who obviously are incompetent in cytometry. Thus, activities of
a ECS must include to propagate cytometry as a discipline of its own, to
advocate establishing of independent cytometry units at university and
institute levels, to claim competence in the field of cytometry and by
this bringing influence to bear of European Commission funding and
assist member societies in national fund raising.
For this, all the national members are needed. I personally would
therefore prefer a union or federation of national societies. A new
society with individual members would be at high risk of sudden death as
most of the colleagues organised at the national level will not apply
for membership. Such a rudimentary organisation would define their own
aims and scopes which are unavoidably diverging from that of the
national societies. A federation can be organised very effectively, the
more so as delegates are democratically legitimised by their national
organisations. Science is increasingly administered by the European
Commission, we therefore need an organisation that represents our
interests in Europe.
A.Orfao, Dec.23, 1996
Through this communication I just want to confirm that the meeting
of the EB of the Iberian Society of Cytometry was delayed to the
next 18th of January and this is the reason why an official
position did not come out earlier. I would also like to wish everyone a
merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you for your letter and enclosure. The Cytometry Section
of the RMS will meet on 8 January. We will discuss these
issues then and report back to the European Group.
I totally agree with you that it is important that cytometrists have an
active organsiation at the European level. Relations with the EU over a
wide range of issue will become increasingly important.
D.van Bockstaele, Jan.6, 1997
The board of the Belgian Association for Cytometry (BVC/ABC :
Belgische Vereniging voor Cytometrie / Association Belge de
Cytometrie) has had a first discussion on the proposals made by
Guenter Valet concerning the foundation of a EFCS or a ECS and on the
various inputs already made by other members of the discussion forum.
In principal we clearly want to encourage Guenters' efforts to install
a European forum on Cytometry.
>From the discussion on the mailing list, it is however clear that some
serious biases tend to occur and that some people may retreat and
excert a defense strategy for their own "niche". In our opinion this
is wrong and we should think about what is uniting us rather than what
is separating us (Belgians are used to think in this way !).
We should not forget that cytometric techniques (already split in two
major specialities i.e. flow and imaging) are being used in a lot of
disciplines (both clinical and experimental hematology, immunology,
pathology, molecular and cellular biology, etc...) by people from
different backgounds (scientists, medical doctors, pharmacologists,
engineers, etc...) : they are tools that should be used correctly in
order to produce reliable results in our research or clinical work,
work that is mostly published in journals of our specific discipline.
So in order to start to answer the question raised by Jim Watson, the
federation should engage itself in making sure that the techniques
(that unite us) are being performed in the best possible way by
working on guidelines, procedures, quality control etc.. so that
newcomers have some hold and so that the quality of the resulting data
and articles (!) improves.
Everybody should be humble and recognise that one is only specialist
in one's own field : the federation should be interdisciplinary and
thus the board composition should not only reflect nationality ratios
but also this interdisciplinarity and last but not least -as Havard
Danielsen stated very correctly - quality !
If the federation will handle both image and flow cytometry and if the
JACP is going to be the forum of this federation, than it is clear
that the journal should broaden its scope and change its name. Again
we should be humble : please take into account that a journal focused
around techniques loses a lot of its impact once the techniques become
fairly established : most of my publications for instance (although
using FCM) are being send to journals of my discipline (i.e.
experimental hematology/medicine) with higher impact factor.
Further to Jean-Luc's suggestion to give information on the national
memberships I can say that the BVC/ABC has currently 161 members
(including 16 company members) and is rather biased towards flow
cytometric applications both in board- as in member composition. This
is not by deliberate purposes : upon establishing the society very few
people working in image responded. I think it is worth while that the
existing societies should mention whether they are flow or image
biased.
due to my absence from the laboratory over the Christmas and New Year
days, the Internet updates of the EFCS site will be made with some delay.
I want to thank the various recent contributors for their thoughtful
comments and suggestions.
M.Spano, Jan.9,1997
let me return your message by expressing my sincere hope that the
forthcoming year will bring to you and to your family happiness
and prosperity. After finishing my workload of the last part of the year
(EC proposals and so on) I'd like to dedicate more time to the EFCS
discussion.
The Cell Analysis Section of the Hungarian Biophysical Society (HBS-CAS) is
not an independent society but is a section (working group) of the
Hungarian Biophysical Society. We have approximately 70 active members,
and usually organize a half a day or one day symposium during the annual
meetings of the Hungarian Biophysical Society.
The executive board of HBS-CAS have discussed the proposals put on the mail
list server and found them very interesting.
We welcome the foundation of European Cytometry Society, and we are in
favour of the model where both corporate membership of national societies
as well as personal membership of individual scientist do exist. We doubt
that every member of the (HBS-CAS) HCS would join the ECS for technical and
also for financial reasons. A few members will join the ECS for sure,
similarly to the ISAC. Six of our members are also members of the ISAC.
The corporate membership of the HBS-CAS will provide a nice channel for
dissemination of information from the ECS to the other members of our
working group.
Since Hungary would like to join the EC in the future joining of our
national working group to the ECS is greatly justified.
The ECS should collaborate with ISAC, we would like to propose a joint
meeting with ISAC when the ISAC meeting is planned in Europe!
The scope of Analytical Cellular Pathology journal will broaden with the
foundation of ECS, and the number of submitted papers should increase.
Although it should be mentioned that broadening the scope will result in
increased competition with other journals such as Cytometry or Bioimaging.
Reply to Joe Gray:
thank you for the letter of
Nov.22, 1996.
It was only delivered yesterday due to its mailing by surface mail.
The national cytometric societies in Europe fulfill important functions
for the local development of the cytometric discipline. The centralisation of
science budgets and funding regulations as well as the increasing influence
of the Brussels public health authorities in the course of the European
unification process is paralleled, however, at present by the relative
inability of the national cytometry societies to cope with this situation e.g. in
view of influencing scientific budget planning, development of joint research
projects etc. While collaborations of science groups e.g. between the East
and West coast are common and unreflected reality due to the more
ancient federative structure of the US, similar research initiatives in Europe
are still relatively rare. A similar ease in scientific cooperation is required in
Europe. The present efforts aim in this direction.
The positive attitude of ISAC towards this activity is very much
appreciated. It is evident that the international cytometry network is
strongest when set up in a complementary way and the present efforts are
fully in line with this goal. In case of the EFCS/EUCS foundation, the joint
organisation (see
Szollosi) with ISAC of certain focus meetings, workshops or courses
as well as the increased potential for the international efforts on
standardisation, quality control and education in cytometry seem to be
attractive challenges for the coming years.
Concerning the publication of ACP, the further development of
the journal will largely depend on decisions of a future European Federation
or Union of Cytometric Societies. While the preferential clinical
orientation of ACP seems to be undisputed in the current discussion,
possible changes may be made to attract more flow cytometric
contributions and to rebalance the editorial board accordingly (see
Brugal,
van Bockstaele,
D'Hautcourt,
Szollosi) . In any case
ACP reaches already now a more extended readership than corresponds to
the ESACP members who are preferentially histo- and cytopathology i.e.
image analysis oriented.
An electronic mailing list has been set up for the discussion forum
on the EFCS/EUCS foundation. You are very welcome to follow the
progress of the discussion on the Internet under
http://www.biochem.mpg.de/valet/efcs.html
These Internet pages are presently not branched to our main
Internet site i.e. the address is not generally known. This provides a
semi-public privacy for the discussion until the EFCS/EUCS foundation will
come into the more definitive phase where input from the general membership
of the national cytometric societies will be sollicited.
I believe that the discussion group will appreciate your active
participation. I will enter your E-mail address into the
mailing list i.e. you will receive all messages and your own messages will be
automatically redistributed to all participants of the discussion forum.
Furthermore it seems useful to display your letter as well as this response
letter on the EFCS Internet site to manifest the active interest of ISAC in
this matter.
G.Valet, Jan.10, 1997
the quick overview of the increasing number of contributions to the
EFCS discussion forum has been facilitated on the EFCS Internet site
by the installation of a "Flash Overview" file. This file contains
the essential extracts of all messages ordered according to date.
Furthermore a
table
with the number of members of the various national
societies was compiled from the available data. Please provide the
missing numbers for the societies in Denmark, Italy,
Poland, Switzerland and UK
J.Lawry, Jan.10, 1997
... The RMS Cytometry Section is recognised by ISAC as
the UK flow cytometry society. We represent some 100 cytometerists
as members of the RMS, but there must be 400+ other potential members
throughout the UK. We had our meeting on 8th January and discussed the
concept of the European Federation.
In general terms we were in favour of the European Federation,
and think that if it is formulated by/for cytometerists, it may meet its
aims and ambitions beter than the ESACP has done to date, which has always
appeared more as a Pathology forum than a cytometry one. We consider a
European network to be a valuable resource for cytometerists. Also, by
obtaining opinions from all national societies and establishing basic
terms of reference, it may prove to be more successful than the ISAC
equivalent.
We consider that basic questions must be addressed, and answers agreed
upon. This may take some considerable time if European political issues are
anything to go by!! For example:-
1. what are the aims of the society - what does it hope to achieve (short term
and long term)?
2. what would membership offer to the cytometerist, that membership of
national societies and ISAC does not provide already - and what would the
cost be, ie. Why should someone join?
3. could membership be via ISAC with a small additional charge such as for
clinical cytometry?
4. what lines of communication would be established?
5. what conferences would it organise and/or support?
6. who would be on the committee, how would they communicate, if they meet who
would pay?
7. We think that the European Federation would only function to serve all
cytometerists in Europe if it were to become an active organisation
under the umbrella of ISAC, retaining strong links with
ISAC at all times, possibly using their skills, experience,
administrative knowledge etc. Perhaps on the years ISAC didn't hold full
meetings, the European section could?
Certainly the European Federation would form the basis for excellent means
of communication for meetings etc (for which I draw your attention to our
WEB page for news of meetings we are organising with the
RMS
For more information about membership, contact the Royal Microscopical
Society:
info@rms.org.uk
So in conclusion, we are in favour of the European Federation,
but there are many issues to resolve.
G.Valet, Jan.13, 1997
...thank you for communicating the opinion of the RMS Cytometry Section
and for the basically positive attitude towards this effort. I will address
your points in the sequence of the message.
1. the aims of a Federation of European Cytometric Societies are obtained by
reexpressing the present deficiencies in the European
organisation of the cytometric discipline from the position papers of
Sep.23 and
Nov.19
positively as goals. Such a document will be shortly available on the
EFCS Internet site.
Short term goals concern the foundation of the federation.
Long term goals concern the increased emphasis of the cytometric aspect in
cell and disease related research projects of the EU with the aim to make more funds
accessible for cytometric research in Europe. Since at this point one is in
competition with other disciplines, national cytometric societies will have a
hard time to access European funds on their own or to influence EU research policies.
Long term goals concern also the development of cytometry as a discipline both at
the electronic level in the Internet as well as at the institutional level in Europe.
2. EFCS membership will offer favorable access
These facilities are not available through the national cytometric
societies or through ISAC.
The financial details cannot be answered precisely without an
existing organisation. A predominantly electronic organisation as well
as meetings of officers, council and committees during conferences together with
the hosting of EFCS meetings by various national cytometric societies by turn-around,
should keep the costs within acceptable limits.
3. It is not likely that the present ISAC organisation could
efficiently advance the European issues for a small additional
charge. In addition, ISAC is not exclusively organizing clinical cytometry
in the US because the clinical division (CCD/clinical committee) of ISAC, CCS,
GLIIFCA and the Chesapeake Bay Consortium are active in parallel in
the US.
4. see last paragraph of 2.
5. EFCS will continue the biannual meeting sequence of ESACP
and therefore profit from the gaps between ISAC meetings. In addition
focus meetings can be organized. They are by definition open for coorganisation
with other societies like ISAC or RMS (e.g. CYTO95 meeting in
Southampton between RMS and ESACP).
6. The organizational structure of EFCS i.e. officers, councillors, committee
members has to be worked out. According to the present development of the
discussion, a federation of national cytometric societies with individual scientist
membership only via the national cytometric societies seems to be the tendency of
the majority. Communication links will be by E-mail or Inter/Intranet. The close
collaboration of EFCS with European Working Groups as task oriented
associations e.g.
European Working Group for Clinical Cell Analysis
with EFCS offers interesting new aspects.
Travel costs for committee members cannot be paid by EFCS in the
early phase if one wants to keep the EFCS administration costs low.
Additional income for these and other purposes can be generated from
meetings, from royalties of the ACP journal, from other specific publications
or from industrial sponsors.
7. The cytometric discipline forms increasingly a world wide network
of nationally, regionally and world wide (ISAC) operating societies. A network
is by definition distributive and interactive. EFCS as a regional
cytometry organization for Europe will integrate into the world wide network
and make all efforts to positively coordinate its activities
internationally with ISAC in order to efficiently develop the cytometric
discipline. It is difficult to see which advantage a particular
"umbrella" function of ISAC should offer to EFCS and why EFCS
should operate e.g. its administration via the ISAC office in Breckenridge.
All national cytometric societies in Europe have developed their own identity
over the past few years and have always administrated themselves. It is my firm
conviction that the representative of the various national cytometric societies
will be motivated and capable to develop the regional European
identity according to the specific European requirements.
J.Watson, Jan.14, 1997
I'm responding to
John Lawry's
e-mail of 10-JAN-97 and your e-mail reply
Guenther posted on 13-JAN-97.
As president-elect of ISAC I can forsee that I will have some responsibility
for the interrelationships between ISAC and EFCS when I take over the
Presidency of ISAC in Feb 1998 and I've included Joe GRAY, current
ISAC president, in this discussion loop. I've also included John PARKER
current president of the Clinical Cytometry Society (CCS) and
Carl STEWART who is CCS president elect.
1) I would see EFCS and ISAC working in parallel and NOT
with EFCS working through ISAC. ISAC is in the process of changing its
Executive Director and soon will be working through the Chicago office
(Sherwood Group) not through the Breckenridge office.
2) There are many issues common to ISAC and EFCS but there are also
differences. Common issues generally are no problem but differences are.
Having a strong group such as EFCS representing the European Societies
can only be "good" for Europe - particularly for obtaining funding from the
European Union (EU) and influencing the directions of Cytometry in the
clinical context. These are particular European issues and I do not
believe that ISAC could, should or would be able to be effective in these
areas in Europe. However, lessons learnt, and being learnt, by ISAC could
be useful for ESCS and initiatives being developed by EFCS, such as the
e-mail and www communications, are lessons which should be learnt by ISAC.
3) I agree with Guenther and I quote from his e-mail - "ISAC is not
exclusively organizing clinical cytometry in the US because the clinical
division (CCD/clinical committee) of ISAC, CCS, GLIIFCA and the Chesapeake Bay
Consortium are active in parallel in the US." ISAC and CCS have
differences to resolve which are being addressed and I see parallels
between CCS and EFCS and also between EFCS and ISAC. What we need to do
above all else is to define areas of common interest in order to
pool resources so we do not duplicate effort. This will allow the
various groupings (EFCS, ISAC, CCS etc.) to concentrate their efforts on
problems which pertain to their particular geographical location and
political climate.
4) It is also encouraging, and I quote again from Guenters e-mail, that
"EFCS as a regional cytometry organization for Europe will integrate into
the world wide network and make all efforts to positively coordinate its
activities internationally with ISAC in order to efficiently develop the
cytometric discipline." Perhaps in the long term we (ISAC and EFCS) should
encourage other "geographical entities" eg. Pacific Rim (not
a small entity) to adopt similar organisational strategies.
5) In responding I'm assuming that EFCS is, "de facto", a new
entity from about now. I'm worried about people who wish to join-up but
who are not attached to a national organisation because they have no
national organisation. We could approach this in 3 ways.
G.Valet, Nov.14, 1996
as an immediate short answer I want to thank Jim for his quite
encouraging comments. Due to the inability to enlarge the
mailing list this evening by the E-mail addresses of John Parker
and Carleton Stewart, I will communicate my comments only by
tomorrow morning.
G.Valet, Jan.15, 1997
... the mailing list has been extended today by the addresses of
John Parker and Carlton Stewart (CCS), Ken
Bauer and Peter Rabinovitch (Clinical Committee/ISAC)...
I am personally in line with points 1 - 4 of your message of
Jan.14.
5) The issue of the non represented scientists is quite
important. As you mention there are different possibilities to take care
of this problem. At the present time one can only say that it is the clear
intention to assure access of non represented European scientists
to EFCS. The details have to be elaborated according to one or
several of the outlined possibilities
EFCS Constitution Proposal:
International Cytometry Network:
System cytometry will provide improved access to the recognition of
individual patient disease prognosis in the clinical
environment which is important for optimal and individualized patient
treatment as well as for the minimization of unwanted therapeutic side
effects. The elaboration of standardized multiparameter data classification
(SMDC) for this purpose constitutes an important international task.
Its success will depend on good interlaboratory standardization and quality
control. The research aspects for the understanding of complex
cellular interaction mechanisms in hemato/immunopoiesis, dysplasia/cancer
cell formation, cell proliferation/differentiation/death are of similar
importance with cytometry offering a substantial number of conceptual
advantages over the exclusively biochemical methodology.
It seems obvious that bundling of efforts and international coordination are the best
guarantees for fast scientific progress. I believe the majority of us think along these
lines. The foundation of EFCS will substantially advance cytometry work in Europe and provide a significant additive potential for positive international feedbacks.
Electronic Discussions:
Like you, I am convinced of the substantial potential of electronic discussions
for the advancement of international cytometry.
G.Valet, Jan.17, 1997
... the IFCC Constitution and Bylaws were received today. The
constitution is available at:
http://www.biochem.mpg.de/valet/efcsfed1.html
The display of the Bylwas will follow shortly. This provides a first
impression on the structure of a federation of scientific societies.
The corresponding FEBS document will hopefully be available from next
week on for display on the Internet.
A.Sampedro Jan.23, 1997
... Thank you very much for your information about the ESACP membership and
election procedure. As you know, last Saterday a meeting of the Executive
Committee took place in Madrid. The comments concerning EFCS were
unanimously favorable, but an official declaration about this matter will be
sent to you from A.Orfao as the SIC President ....
J.Larsen, Jan.28, 1997
... The Danish Society for Flow Cytometry was founded in 1988. It has at present 86 members.
Of these, the 81 memberships are personal. The remaining 5 memberships represent
companies and have no voting rights. ....
G.Valet, Jan.28, 1997
.... the FEBS constitution was just received and is now displayed on
the EFCS node. With both, the FEBS and the IFCC constitutions
on-line, I will shortly provide a first tentative draft of the EFCS
constitution. The draft will be displayed on the Internet for discussion.
There will be cross references in the draft. They will permit a quick
judgment of the EFCS proposal in relation to both model constitutions.
Although constitution and bylaw reading is not very popular, I want to ask for
your attention. Besides unproblematic paragraphs there will certainly be
paragraphs which require discussion. It may not be possible to resolve all
issues by electronic discussion but one should be able to at least clearly
define the problem areas.
Joergen Larsen has just reported the
membership of the Danish cytometric society. The numbers have been
included into the national societies
membership table.
B.Brando Jan.31, 1997
I have submitted to the Council of the Italian Society for Cytometry
(Gruppo Italiano di Citometria, GIC) the proposals made by Guenter Valet
about the creation of an European Federation of Cytometric Societies (EFCS).
It is a quite delicate matter, but we feel that at last some steps towards
this aim must be moved right now. The major prompt to some form of European
Federation of national Cytometric Societies in our opinin resides
in the very close deadline established for European economical reunification.
In other words, Europe will be a single economical (and perhaps political)
entity in a very short time an a number of European-wide regulatory issues
in the field of diagnostic procedures are rapidly taking place. The recent
approval of the
Biomed 2 European project, which gathers
research and clinical cytometry centers from 13 EC and non-EC Countries is
another good point for the creation of some specific european organization
in the field of cytometry.
Keeping this in mind, the following points summarize the conclusions drawn
by the GIC Council reunion held on December 1996:
1) EFCS should be established as a regional entity not in contrast
with ISAC aims and activities. On the contrary, EFCS and ISAC together
should cooperate and find synergy in a number of technical, regulatory and
educational issues.
2) The multidisciplinary nature of cytometry must be mantained
by EFCS, without missing any scientifical, technical and applicative aspect.
Moreover, no restrictive indications (i. e. clinical, flow, image etc.) must
be included in its name.
3) We basically disagree on the joining of ESACP along with
national Cytometry socities in the EFCS. ESACP is an European scientific
society mostly devoted to clinical pathology. A number of reputed scientist
from varous nations are in the ESACP council and ACP magazine board, as well
as in the council of their respective national cytometric societies.
Therefore the existence of of ESACP in its current configuration seems a
major obstacle to the creation of EFCS. We cannot of course want ESACP to
dissolve as a society, but either ESACP does not join EFCS
at all, or some form of painless mixing without creating
useless duplications must be sought for, in view of the successful birth
of EFCS.
4) the same issues must be considered about the Analytical Cellular
Pathology magazine. Should this magazine become the official journal of
EFCS ? What about the relationship between ESACP and APC magazine once
it becomes putatively the official journal of EFCS?
5) In a first step we think it will be easier to establish some form
of cooperation among selected members of the national cytometry societies
by means of an ad hoc committee. This group may be given for instance a
2-years commitment to arrange and establish experimentally the structure of
EFCS. The members of the committee will be nominated by the national
societies, with some seats also for the Nations not represented by cytometric
societies.
Special care should be paid to the balance among the membership weight
of the national societies and the spectrum of all scientific interests that
must be represented in EFCS. The more widespread form of application, i.e.
by single individuals, must be kept apart, at least temporarily. The single
individual application to EFCS must find all the other organizational issues
(i.e. membership fee ? with or without Journal subscription ? Which journal
?) already well solved by the first restricted committee.
A.Orfao Feb.2, 1997
... The Executive Board of the Iberian Society of Cytometry (SIC) met
the last 18th of January in Madrid. The agenda of the Meeting included
discussion regarding the creation of a European Federation of National
Cytometry Societies.
A unanimous position existed regarding this which is
summarized below. However, before enumerating the most important points of
agreement between the members of the SIC executive board it should be noted
that a decision on the possible relationship of the Society with the
European Federation of National Cytometry Societies only can be
decided in a definitive way once it has been voted in a General Assembly
(which will take place during the next Congress of the SIC the first
week of June. Once this is clarified, the position of the Executive Board
is by unanimous agreement as follows:
- The creation of an European Federation of National Cytometry
Societies is well-viewed and stimulated by the Society.
- We congratulate and thank Gunter Valet for the way
he has organized the discussions which have been found interesting and
stimulating.
- The discussion on the creation of the Federation is a matter
which should not come together with the items related to the European
Society of Analytical Cellular Pathology (ESACP)since these are
two completely different issues which have to be clearly
separated.
- Although many interesting personal opinions have appeared at the
present point, an Official position and action has to be
taken by the National Societies by establishing official contacts
between them. In this sense the ESACP could be seen as another
society that could participate in the general discussion.
In this sense the Iberian Society of Cytometry will
delegate in, one or more of its members as representatives for
these discussions.
- Once the official contacts between the National Societies have
been established, an agenda is needed in which both the times
and items for discussion are included.
G.Valet, Feb.3, 1997
... following the positive opinions of the
Iberian (SIC) and
Italian (GIC)
cytometric societies, the following overall picture emerges as a
result of this discussion forum:
1.) the national cytometric societies or sections of
Belgium,
Danmark,
France,
Germany,
Italy,
Portugal/Spain,
Hungary and
UK
are positively decided to enter into closer negotiations on the
formation of a European Federation or Union of Cytometric Societies while
the Polish and Swiss societies have so far not actively
participated in the discussion
2.)
the French (
J.L.D'Hautcourt, Nov.27),
Italian (
B.Brando, Jan.31)
and Iberian (
A.Orfao, Feb.2)
societies explicitely express their intent to keep the EFCS
foundation process strictly separate (see proposal
G.Valet, Nov.26, 1996)
from ESACP while the Belgian, Danish, German,
Hungarian and UK societies have not expressed a
significant concern about this point.
As an obvious consequence, negotiations on EFCS foundation
are only promissing when organizationally uncoupled from
the ESACP and ACP issues. Following the proposal of
B.Brando (Jan.31) the national
cytometric societies of Belgium, Danmark, France,
Germany, Italy, Portugal/Spain, Hungary and
the UK should officially nominate representatives to form
an EFCS Foundation Council which from now on will take the
further actions in its hands.
...In my opinion, the editorial board should be based on quality only,
regardless of nationality. It should not necesarily reflect the membership
or national representation. Why should the Journal have a new orientation,
and what kind of orientation is this?
... The ESACP has achieved several important things: We have got a new and good
journal with an steadily increasing impact, and we have got bi-annual
conferences of high quality and good participation (700 in Grenoble!) We
have obtained a consensus on image-DNA ploidy etc.etc.
- Personal membership only via membership in national societies
- Problem: scientists in countries without national societies
- Advantage: personal membership for scientists from countries without
national society
- Problem: balance of interests between corporate and personal
membership
J.L.D'Hautcourt, Dec.16,1996
From many years the national societies have extended their initial scope to
all fields of Cytometry (Flow and image, Basic research or clinical
applications). In addition to our annual four days meeting, we organize
2 or 3, special topics, one day meeting covering different
fields. Last year, the AFC has also sponsored a one day meeting "cytometry
in microbiology" and this year "DNA content in plant biology".
We also organize every year a one day meeting in molecular cytogenetic
(FISH, PRINS, CGH, ...). So I believe that NCS are better basis than
individuals to form the EUNCS and to give it a broader scope.
J.Hemmer, Dec.19,1996
M.Ormerod, Dec.23,1996
G.Valet, Jan.8.1997
J.Szollosi, Jan.9, 1997
G.Valet, Jan.9, 1997
- to EFCS meetings
- to the ACP journal in its new shape
- to electronic databases for keeping track of the results of the various
quality control and standardization efforts in clinical cytometry at the
European level and
- to the active participation in the development of the cytometric aspects in
the European health system.
(a) Such people should be encouraged to form a national
organisation
(b) EFCS could find a way for individuals to join or
(c) they could join the national society of their nearst neighbour.
The FEBS and IFCC constitutions will be shortly provided following telephone
calls to Mme Thirion of IFCC and Vito Turk of FEBS yesterday. A first proposal
for the EFCS constitution will then be provided as www-pages for further discussion
as fast as possible .
The increasing establishment of a multi-society international cytometry
network represents the most visible sign for the gradual transition
from "tool" cytometry to "system" cytometry as a self-standing
scientific discipline. The organisation of "theme" oriented
cytometry sessions at meetings as well as the formation of Working Groups
in clinical cytometry, with members from various clinical and
experimental disciplines are other indicators of this development.
The advantage of the present E-mail/Internet discussion are:
- high relevance
- fast and precise responses
- astonishing progress
- ease by self generating protocol
- cost and time effective for discussants as well as for dissemination
of results
For problems or comments, please contact:
G.Valet E-mail:
valet@vms.biochem.mpg.de ,
Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, Am Klopferspitz 18a,
D-82152 Martinsried, Germany,
Tel: +49/89/8578-2518, -2525, Fax: +49/89/8578-2563,
INTERNET address: http://www.biochem.mpg.de/valet/efcs.html
Last update: Feb.3, 1997