On behalf of the board of the Association for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM) I warmly welcome you to our annual meeting in Göttingen, a university town with a long history in Microbiology. It is the first in-person meeting since 2020. The pandemic forced us to hold two online meetings in 2021 and 2022. In another twist of fate, we had to postpone this year’s spring meeting to September due to the looming energy crisis. Now, we are finally looking forward to convening in a beautiful city, to listen to fantastic keynote lectures and short talks, to interact with fellow scientists during poster sessions, industry exhibitions and coffee breaks, and to enjoy social interactions during the welcome reception and the mixer. Let’s reconnect with old friends and make new ones!
We are extremely grateful to the local organizers for hosting us. Jörg Stülke as conference chair and the organizing committee put together an attractive scientific program that reflects the full breadth of our society. Talks will cover topics like Regulation and Signal Transduction, Biotechnology, Computational Microbiology and Fungal Interactions. Poster sessions on 17 different topics ranging from Anaerobic Metabolism to Systems Biology, mini symposia organized by our Special Groups and the Industry-Academia Panel will complement the wonderful program.
Among the many highlights of this conference will be two Hans-Günter-Schlegel lectures from this and last year, the annual VAAM Research Award and the biennial VAAM Innovation Award. Four recently graduated doctoral students will receive a PhD award for their excellent theses, and we will continue the Invited Postdoc Lecture series that was established last year to showcase the achievements of a selected junior researcher.
The VAAM has always been committed to supporting early career researchers and a few years ago we established VAAMentoring, a mentoring program specifically tailored to the needs of junior microbiologists. We are pleased to announce that the meeting will offer two events to foster personal interactions, an informal get-together on Sunday evening and a lunch meeting on Tuesday to present and discuss the current status of VAAMentoring. You are cordially invited to join and help us shape the future of the mentoring program.
Franz Narberhaus | President of the VAAM