Biophysical Society Subgroup Information

ARTICLE 1
Name: The name of this Group is the Exocytosis and Endocytosis Subgroup.

ARTICLE 2.
Objective: The objective of this Group is to promote the interchange of information about exocytosis and endocytosis among members of this Group and between this Group and others interested in exocytosis and endocytosis, and to foster the advance of knowledge about exocytosis and endocytosis.

ARTICLE 3.
Membership: A Group member is any Society member who submits his name to the Chair-Elect and who has paid dues for the current year.

Affiliates: An Affiliate is a non-member of the Society who submits his name to the Chair-Elect and who has paid his dues for the current year. Affiliates will receive mailings to the group and such other services or activities as may be made available to members. Affiliates may not vote or hold office.

ARTICLE 4.
Dues: Dues may be assessed to cover the necessary expenses related to operation of the group. The amount and means of collection are described in article 11.

ARTICLE 5.
Operation: The Group will be operated by a Committee consisting of five members. The Committee will consist of the Group Chair, the Past Chair, the Chair-Elect and two other members selected by the Chair to represent the breadth of research interests of the Group membership.

Duties of the Group Chair are to organize and conduct Group Meetings and to advise the Biophysical Society of the activities and needs of the Group. The Chair also advises the Society on matters related to exocytosis and endocytosis, and any other activities the Chair deems to be beneficial to the Group and to the Society. The
Chair is to consult other members of the Committee in organizing Group Meetings.

The Chair-Elect acts as Secretary and Treasurer for the Group. This includes maintaining adequate records of membership and finances, and carrying out necessary correspondence. The Chair-Elect makes the technical arrangements for the Group Meetings and administers Group elections.

ARTICLE 6.
Term of Office: Each member of the Committee will hold their office for one year. After a new Chair-Elect is elected, the Chair will become the Past Chair and the former Chair-Elect will become the Chair and appoint 2 new members to the Committee.

ARTICLE 7.
Eligibility for Office: Only members can serve on the Committee. The Past-Chair is ineligible for re-election for two years. The two appointed members of the Committee are ineligible to be reappointed for two years but may be elected to the Chair-Elect position.

ARTICLE 8.
Election of the Chair-Elect: It is the intent of the Group that the Chair shall be rotated so as to fairly represent the different specialties within the membership.

Within a month of the Annual Meeting, the Chair-Elect will solicit nominations from Group Members. Each Group Member may nominate up to 3 Members for the Chair-Elect position. The Chair-Elect shall then compile a slate of the top four nominees that are willing to serve and who have obtained at least two nominations. The election will be conducted by email ballot of all Group Members approximately 1 month after solicitation of nominations. Each Group Member can vote for one Member on the slate. Two weeks will be allowed for Members to cast their ballots. The Group Member on the slate that receives the most votes will become the new Chair-Elect.

ARTICLE 9.
Meetings: There shall be at least one scientific meeting per year: The meeting is to be scheduled at the time designated for Group meetings at the Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society as determined by
the Council of the Biophysical Society. A minimum of thirty days notice of the Annual Meeting such as publication in the Biophysical Society or Group Newsletters must be given.

ARTICLE 10.
Amendments to the By-Laws: These By-Laws can be amended by a majority of members responding to a mail or email ballot. Proposals for new or amended By-Laws shall be submitted to the Chair-Elect for consideration at the Annual Meeting. Proposed amendments to the By-Laws may be placed on a mail ballot by a majority vote at the Annual Meeting or at the discretion of the Chair.

ARTICLE 11.
Dues: Dues are $15.00 per year.
Dues shall be collected from Group members by the Biophysical Society. Affiliates will be billed for dues directly by the Chair-Elect.

ARTICLE 12.
Expenditures: Any monies available to the Group may be expended by the Group Chair for the three following purposes:

1. For direct expenses connected with the operation of the Group.
2. To cover all or part of the expenses of persons invited to speak at the Annual Group Meeting.

The Chair-Elect may expend monies to cover the direct expenses associated with office.

ARTICLE 13
Annual Award: An award shall be presented at the Annual Group Meeting to honor an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of exocytosis and/or endocytosis. It is the intention of the Group that award recipients be rotated so as to fairly represent the different specialties within the membership. It is also
the intention of the Group to give the Award on occasion to Investigators that are in relatively early stages of their career. Individuals do not have to be a member of the Exocytosis and Endocytosis Group to be eligible for the Award. The amount of money or other financial consideration (travel expenses, etc…) associated with the award, if any, is decided by a majority vote of the Committee based upon the resources of the Group. The Chair-Elect will solicit nominations for the Award from the Group at the same time that nominations for the new Chair-Elect are
gathered. After the election of the new Chair-Elect, the newly formed Committee will consider the Awardnominations from the Group and make their own nominations. The Award recipient must receive at least three votes from the five-member Committee. If necessary, multiple “runoff” elections may be held until an individual receives the required three votes. The Award recipient should be chosen within approximately one month of the election of the new Chair-Elect in order to allow time for the Award recipient to make plans to attend the Annual Meeting.

1:00 Guillermo Alvarez de Toledo (Co-Chair), Welcome

1:15-1:45

Yuki Goda, University College, London

Sharing and organization of synaptic vesicle pools at hippocampal synapses

1:45-2:15

Edward Stuenkel, University of Michigan

Defining Regulatory Interactions during Exocytosis by FRET

2:15 - 2:30 Break

2:30 - 3:00

Sandra Schmid, The Scripps Res. Inst., La Jolla

Mechani-chemical activity of dynamin in vesicle formation

3:00 – 3:30

Josh Zimmerberg, NIH

Membrane protein mobility within cell surface domains and membrane budding

3:30 - 4:00 Break

4:00 - 5:30 Presentation and Award Lecture: Fifth Annual Sir Bernard Katz Award for Excellence in

Research in Exocytosis and Endocytosis

Reinhard Jahn, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical

Chemitry, Goettingen (Germany) and

Thomas Sudhof, Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

4:00 – 4:45

Reinhard Jahn

Exocytosis of synaptic vesicles: Are SNAREs up to the task?

4:45 – 5:30

Thomas C. Sudhof

How Calcium Triggers Synaptic Vesicle Exocytosis

5:30 - 6:00 Business Meeting

7:00 Gala Dinner at Georges Greek Cafe

Bernard Katz

Bernard Katz was born on 26 March, 1911, in Leipzig, Germany, of Russian Jewish origin. His early education was at the Albert Gymnasium in Leipzig (1921-1929). He then studied Medicine at the University of Leipzig and obtained his M.D. in 1934. BK fled Germany in 1935 and was accepted as a Ph.D. student by Professor A.V. Hill at University College, London where he worked until August 1939. BK referred to Hill as his greatest scientific influence and later described this period as “the most inspiring period of my life”. BK then left Britain for Sydney, Australia where he worked with John Eccles and Stephen Kuffler. In 1941 he became a naturalized British citizen and in 1942, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force, and served as a Radar Officer in the South West Pacific until the end of the war. Immediately after the war, BK married Marguerite Penly (“Rita”) and was invited by A.V. Hill to return to UCL in 1946 as Assistant Director of Research and Henry Head Research Fellow. During this period he presented the first description of inward rectification and demonstrated, together with Alan Hodgkin, that the overshoot of the action potential results from an influx of Na⁺. BK and Rita also had two children during this era: David and Jonathan.

In 1952 Katz succeeded A.V. Hill as Professor of Biophysics at University College, London and headed a department there until his retirement in 1978. During the 1950s, BK and Paul Fatt observed spontaneous miniature synaptic currents and developed the “quantal hypothesis” that is the basis for our current understanding of neurotransmitter release as exocytosis and for which BK received the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology (together with Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod) in 1970. In the late 1960s Ricardo Miledi and BK advanced the hypothesis that depolarization-induced influx of Ca²⁺ triggers exocytosis. In the early 1970s Miledi and BK quantified the voltage noise induced in muscle by acetylcholine to infer properties of single ion channels before they could be directly measured and thus opened the era of molecular neuroscience. BK was also admired for his crisp, unpretentious writing style.

Bernard Katz remained scientifically active long after his retirement. He died at the age of 92 on 20 April 2003. Rita Katz died in 1999.

Sir Bernard Katz Awardees since 2004

2004 Erwin Neher

2005 Wolfhard Almers

2006 John Heuser & Thomas Reese

2007 William J. Betz

2008 Reinhard Jahn & Thomas C. Südhof