New Developments

This page represents a newly added feature, where we will try to keep you up-to-speed on what's happening, especially in view of questions that we are frequently asked. FROM NOW ON, CLICK ON Post Peptide Symposium Syndrome FOR MORE NEWS AND INFORMATION!

Posted: Week of July 12, 1999 (last posting on this page)

(Sent via list-serve on July 4) Thanks for honoring us with your presence at the 16^th American Peptide Symposium: Peptides for the New Millennium. Things couldn't have gone any better, including the weather. We are taking a deserved respite for the coming week, but will be back in action soon to take care of necessary followup and loose ends. Our highly successful Symposium website http://www1.chem.umn.edu/16aps/ exceeded 28,000 hits the week of the meeting, and will be maintained for some time hence. Be sure to check a new section that we will establish the week of July 12 called ppss (Post Peptide Symposium Syndrome). Winners of the various serious and more light-hearted competitions will be posted, late abstracts will be listed, and further information about the sensational opera "Peptide Ångst: La Triviata" will be provided. Keep in mind that we still need to complete the Symposium Proceedings which will then go to all registered participants. A quick query, did any of you tape record either Dan Rich's brilliant Rao Makineni lecture on Tuesday that went with his receipt of the 1999 Merrifield Award, or the seminal final session "Perspectives for the New Millennium" chaired by Bruce Merrifield? If so, please send an e-mail to barany@tc.umn.edu, and we'll take it from there. Those wanting the complete List of Participants in electronic format should send a formal request via e-mail to the same address. Again, congratulations to all of the stars of the Symposium, the awardees, the speakers, the session chairs, the exhibitors, the Junior Symposium, the local staff, the volunteers, the klezmer band, the opera artists ... you made for a week we will never forget! As for Governor Ventura, we're still trying to work the Symposium onto his busy schedule.

Posted: Week of June 21, 1999

• Announcing the Thursday, July 1, 1999 banquet entertainment:
  "Peptide Ångst: La Triviata" luridly explores the neurotic life of peptide chemist, Nerd Ångström, as he heroically seeks to break free of the ring of fire that is his life. Aided by private eye-turned-science-ghost-grant-writer, Cash Baxter, Nerd strives to find the eternal harmonic balance between his science, his Faustian agreement with the NIH, his devoted wife Leucine and loving children Polly and Peptide, and his despair with the moral decay of the twentieth century fin-de-siecle brought on by the teaching of evolution. Meet Sid Sharmus, Carbon Jones, Hans von de Fritz and many others in this gripping operatic tale of love, betrayal, angst, and the search for the elixir of funding. DON'T MISS IT! TAKE A LATER FLIGHT!
• American Peptide Symposium Young Scientist Job Fair webpage has been set up with downloadable registration forms. The Student Affairs Committee is again holding a Young Scientist Job Fair at the 16^th American Peptide Symposium. This activity is provided free of charge with the goal to assist young scientists (graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) in identifying employment opportunities and potential academic and industrial employers.
• Read the welcome message from Dr. Jane V. Aldrich to all Poster Competition Participants.
• Web-based registration closes 8 a.m. Minneapolis time on Tuesday, June 22, 1999. Registration via FAX closes 8 a.m. Minneapolis time on Wednesday, June 23, 1999. All subsequent registration and payment can be handled on-site at the Registration/Information desk, although it would speed things along if you have filled out your forms in advance (the forms can still be downloaded).
• The ThermoQuest exhibitor workshop date, time, and place have been changed from what was announced previously (included what will appear in the printed Program & Abstracts book). The correct date is Sunday June 27, 1999, time is 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., place is The Seasons Lounge. The overall title is "Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry, SEQUEST and the Web: Powerful tools for Proteomics"; topics covered will includee protein identification using database searching, mapping post-translational modifications and de novo sequencing of peptides. The speaker will be Tanuja Chaudhary.
• STOP / PRESS / BULLETIN: A Championship Singles Tennis Match will be held on Tuesday June 29, 1999 at the Nicollet Tennis Center starting at 3:00 p.m. with the Champion being declared at 5:00 p.m. Finalists are Leo Benoiton and Jean Rivier. Spectators are invited to attend. Admission is free.
• Congratulations to the elegant San Antonio Spurs for their tremendous season, and for their victory which came just in the Knicks of time to allow us to offer our undiluted concentration on the upcoming Symposium.

Posted: Week of June 7, 1999

• Regular visitors to this web site are well aware that much has been going on in the past month or two. Since April, we have set up a number of list-serves to send e-mail communications to various groups and subgroups, including all Symposium registrants, all Society members, all lecturers, all poster presenters, all exhibitors, etc. Within the past two weeks, we have sent out over a thousand individual items of mail covering Program Committee decisions (including appropriate instructions for Proceedings manuscripts, poster setup, slide presentation tips), the American Peptide Society Travel Grants, dormitory information, the Junior Symposium, etc. The scientific program and schedule and information about exhibitor workshops have been on-line for over a month now, and the list of poster presentations and the searchable index of all authors has been available for several weeks. As we distribute materials, small errors come to our attention from the hundreds of proof-readers out there in cyberspace, and are immediately fixed by us on the appropriate pages of the web site. Hence, please refer to this web site for the absolute latest and "correctest"!
• The major new information with time pressure now is that we have generated a list of all young scientists who are participating in the Young Investigators' Poster Competition and/or the ESCOM Awards selection process. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and their mentors, should please confirm that information on the aforementioned page is accurate, and e-mail corrections, additions, and deletions to Professor Barany at barany@tc.umn.edu just as soon as possible. Sometime in the next week, more news of interest to young scientists, including Job Fair information, will be posted on the Student Affairs Committee page.
• The Poster & Abstracts book is essentially ready for the printer, as is the List of Participants booklet. We hope to continue to receive your very late abstracts for posters until Tuesday June 15, 1999; these will be printed and distributed as an insert into your book. Please click on abstracts for more information [we ask that you submit as an e-mail attachment to (16aps Email Account Has Been Deactivated), and, as a backup so that we can see what your abstract looks like, please fax it to 1-612-626-7541]. We continue to take registrations; suggest that those who have not yet made reservations for accommodations and can afford to do so should stay at the Minneapolis Hilton and Towers; encourage alumni of the Erickson, Goodman, Hruby, Merrifield, Rich, Spatola, and/or University of Minnesota laboratories to visit our reunions page; and are scouting for additional talented family members age 10-18 who might want to join the Junior Symposium (there are many fabulous treats in store for the young people who elect to participate!).
• Most of you know by now of the untimely passing in November 1998 of Bruce W. Erickson at the age of 56. Friends and colleagues of Bruce have been making contributions to the American Peptide Society via the 16^th American Peptide Symposium financial office, with the goal to fund the Bruce Erickson awards for 1999 and beyond. The response to date has been enormously gratifying (see the Sponsors page). If you personally, or your company, would like to make a tax-deductible contribution to this worthy effort, please contact Professor Barany by e-mail at barany@tc.umn.edu, and more information will be provided to you.
• The entertainment for the Symposium is falling into place nicely. We are delighted to announce that the opening reception/mixer on Saturday, June 26, 1999 will feature music by the Minnesota Klezmer Band. At the closing banquet on Thursday, July 1, 1999, there will be the world premiere of a commissioned peptide-inspired opera, directed by Gary C. Gisselman and performed by students and faculty from the University of Minnesota School of Music. To whet your appetite, click here for the libretto to an opera written by a member of our peptide community, Professor Lloyd Fricker of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
• We also remind you to consider either of the two scheduled events on the free Tuesday afternoon/evening of June 29, 1999, i.e., the Stillwater/St. Croix excursion and the golf tournament. We think these are both fun activities, and suggest that if you are so inclined, send an e-mail to Amanda (amaudal@esp.extension.umn.edu) on our St. Paul staff, or send a fax to 612-625-2207, in order to reserve your place. If you are the more independent sort and scouting for ideas, visit our Twin Cities page and/or look at the Summer Guide recently published by one of the local newspapers. Regretfully, the Minnesota Twins will be on the road the entire week, but there is plenty else to do.

Posted: Week of April 26, 1999

• You can now see the scientific program for oral presentations, including the Young Investigators' MiniSymposium. Relatively small errors remain that we are fixing, and some minor adjustments will be made shortly. The list of poster presentations will be on the web in mid-May.
• The "no ifs ands or buts" deadline for poster abstracts that will appear in the Program & Abstracts book is FRIDAY, April 30, 1999. Please submit as an e-mail attachment to (16aps Email Account Has Been Deactivated). Also, as a backup so that we can see what your abstract looks like, please fax it to 1-612-626-7541. For those who cannot meet this deadline, please click on abstracts for our brand-new policy on very late abstracts.
• We are delighted to announce that Ronald Frank has been selected to receive the Advanced ChemTech Award in Combinatorial Library Sciences.
• Scroll down this page for further relevant reminders (registration; exhibition; Bruce Erickson awards; ESCOM awards; Junior Symposium) and requests for financial assistance (sponsorship).
• Those who are alumni of the Erickson, Goodman, Hruby, Merrifield, Rich, and/or University of Minnesota laboratories, please check our brand-new reunions page.

• We hope that you have heard the exciting news that Daniel H. Rich has been selected to receive the Merrifield Award.
• The recipients of the American Peptide Society Travel Grants are now posted.
• The Escom Awards have been established to recognize the "most outstanding poster on a subject relevant to drug discovery by a young academic scientist" (either graduate student or postdoctoral). Follow the link for more details.
• The process of selecting speakers for the Young Investigators' Mini-Symposium is still underway. It has been decided that all students and postdoctoral fellows may express their interest in being considered for the Poster Competition by sending us an e-mail to that effect by the end of April, 1999. We will also require your updated curriculum vitae and a recommendation letter from your mentor. If you have already been considered for a Travel Grant, no new materials are required, just a statement of interest.
• Please continue to fill in and submit your Registration forms, and send in late abstracts that can still be included in the Program & Abstracts book at your earliest convenience. If you have scientifically-oriented family members between the ages of 10 and 18, please click on Junior Symposium.
• Please visit our Sponsors and Exhibitors pages, and contact the Symposium co-Chairs if your company or organization would like to participate.

Posted: Week of March 22, 1999

• Please be patient, many exciting new items about the Symposium will be posted this week and next. In the meantime, we hope to receive your registrations for the meeting.
• The Program Committee had a marathon meeting all-Saturday, March 20, 1999, and Professors Barany and Fields have begun to individually contact presenting authors of those abstracts chosen for oral presentation. This will be a very exciting Symposium with much cutting-edge peptide science to be presented.
• The Travel Grant Committee chaired by Professor Arno Spatola has completed its work. Over $40,000 in awards to over 80 deserving applicants have been approved. The official notification will occur in mid-April; however, if you wish to know the outcome ahead of that for purposes of making your travel plans, please send us an (16aps Email Account Has Been Deactivated).
• The process of selecting speakers for the Young Investigators' Mini-Symposium is still underway. It has been decided that all students and postdoctoral fellows may express their interest in being considered for the Poster Competition by sending us an e-mail to that effect by the end of April, 1999. We will also require your updated curriculum vitae and a recommendation letter from your mentor. If you have already been considered for a Travel Grant, no new materials are required, just a statement of interest.
• Sometime next week, full information will be posted about the new Drug Discovery Awards sponsored by the ESCOM Science Foundation.
• We are still accepting abstracts. These should be received by the end of April 1999 and they will be included in the "Program & Abstract Book" distributed to all registered participants.
• Please visit our Sponsors and our Exhibits pages, which have been substantially updated within the past few days. We thank our generous sponsors, and we are proud of how the exhibition is shaping up to be a complete representation of the important commercial chemical suppliers, instrumentation manufacturers, and publishers supporting state-of-the-art peptide research.
• The winner of the 1999 Merrifield Award will be announced on these pages sometime next week (not on April 1, no fooling!).

Posted: Week of February 22, 1999

• Two very important deadlines are coming up at the end of this week. First, the extended deadline for abstract submission. Second, the deadline for early registration at the reduced fees.
• We are pleased to announce that the Third Advanced ChemTech Award in Combinatorial Library Sciences will be presented at our venue.
• All aspects of the Symposium organization are moving forward very well. Visit several of our pages which have been extensively updated (including introduction of relevant links), especially Sponsors, Exhibitors, Committee, and Scientific Program.

Posted: Week of February 8, 1999

• Due to the overwhelming response of submitted abstracts, we have decided to extend the deadline for abstract submission through February 28, 1999 (yes, another Sunday). Abstracts received by this date can still be considered by the Program Committee for inclusion as either oral or poster presentations.
• Please see the "week of January 25" posting for more information about abstract submission. Send your abstracts via express courier services or as electronic attachments. Due to some logistics problems, the entirely web-based submission procedure will not be used any more (persons who submitted this way up to now need not worry, we have things under control).
• Give us another few days, but by the end of the week, please check our Sponsors page which will have a dramatic new look out of gratitude to those who have already made generous and vital contributions to the success of our Symposium. We obviously welcome additional financial support, and look forward to hearing from the appropriate people in your organization.

• Abstract submission through the web is 100% up-and-running.
• Express mailing: The address with a P.O. box that we have announced to date is not recognized by many courier services. The various alternative ways to send materials to us are summarized in the completely up-to-date Contact Information section.
• Many people have pointed out that January 31, 1999 is a Sunday. Please get your materials to us as close to January 31 as you can, but you should know that we're plenty busy enough without checking postage meterings, etc. At least the Minnesota Vikings didn't make it to the Super Bowl, so we'll be able to concentrate on peptides that Sunday, and beyond.
• Some of you may have heard about a rather interesting political phenomenon sweeping the good state of Minnesota. If you want to know more, click on Governor Ventura.