This is a very busy and exciting time for the Association. We are nearing the completion of the planning stage for our annual meeting in conjunction with the Protein Society. Once again, our meeting organizers have put together an excellent program that I believe you will all find interesting and exciting. Like last year, the meeting will start off with a welcoming reception on Friday evening, July 8, and will include six workshops on Saturday. A new feature of the meeting this year will be the presentation of the 1994 BECKMAN-ABRF AWARD for outstanding contributions to biomolecular technologies and applications. The presentation of the award will be followed by a talk by the award recipient. We are very excited about the establishment of this award which will recognize contributions to areas related to the interests of our membership. I am sure you will all want to attend this important occasion.
We have just completed our annual Winter Board Meeting and I am happy to report that our Association is healthy and growing. Among the many things decided was the establishment of a directory of resource laboratories that will handle analyses and syntheses from investigators outside their own institutions. This directory will hopefully provide each of us with better access to techniques that we are not able to offer directly in our own labs. A second major outcome of this meeting is that we have reaffirmed our intention to sponsor an independent meeting in 1995. This meeting is not intended to replace our annual meeting with the Protein Society, which is still planned, but will offer a wider scope of topics that will better meet the needs of our members interested in carbohydrates and nucleic acids as well as proteins. Watch for additional information about this as it develops and start making plans to attend.
Other things to look for this year are ABRF sponsored workshops at the annual meeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in late May, the ASBMB meeting in May, and the Methods in Protein Structure Analysis meeting in September. Each of these workshops offers a unique perspective developed around the interests of the particular meeting at which they are held. Thus, very little overlap will be seen for those of you who may be attending more than one meeting. Last, but certainly not least, we would like to take this opportunity to welcome all of our new members as well as our returning members. This year will once again mark the breaking of new ground for the ABRF and we are pleased that you have joined us in this endeavor.
Gregory A. Grant
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