Midwest Section 2008 Meeting

This year’s annual meeting of the Midwest Section of ASPB was organized by Gustavo MacIntosh and held at Iowa State University on March 29-30. The meeting was attended by 130 people from throughout the Midwest. A record 79 abstracts were submitted, leading to a large number of outstanding oral and poster presentations. Awards for best graduate student oral presentation went to Brian Freeman and Yimo Liu (both at Iowa State University); for best graduate student posters to Alexis Hoffman, Matt Hillwig, and Guy Sander (all at Iowa State University); for best undergraduate student presentation to Josh Kangas (Truman University) and Sebastian Goy (Purdue).

A key feature of this year’s meeting was a biofuels symposium featuring talks by Basil Nikolau (Iowa State University), Tom Clemente (University of Nebraska), Nancy Carpenter (University of Minnesota Morris) and Markus Pauly (Michigan State University). The speakers addressed the historical need and use of biofuels, as well as the advances and challenges to using plant or algae oils and cellulose as sources. The complete abstract book as well as pictures from the meeting will be posted on the Midwest Section's webpage.

This year the position of chair-elect is open for nomination. The year’s officers are Chris Wolverton (chair) and Sarah Wyatt (treasurer).
Susanne Hoffmann-Benning (Past chair, MWASPB)

Josh Kangas, Guy Sander and Alexis Hoffman