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PRESIDENT’S LETTER

PROFESSOR JIM MURRAY PRESIDENT, SOCIETY FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

Welcome to the SEB Newsletter! The focus of this issue is mitochondria, the crucial powerhouses of the cell. I have always been fascinated by the idea that primitive eukaryotic cells evolved by domesticating a prokaryotic symbiont to provide their energy source, gradually taming it to ensure its dependence on the host cell! Prisoner or free-rider –choose your viewpoint. You’ll discover much more informed discussion about mitochondrial function in the accompanying articles.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome Felix Mark as new Interim Chair of the Animal Section, taking over from Shaun Killen. Felix is an integrative ecophysiologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany (https://www.awi.de/ ueber-uns/organisation/mitarbeiter/detailseite/ felix-christopher-mark.html). I am most grateful to Felix for agreeing to take on this role and know that I speak for the whole SEB Council in looking forward to working with him. I would like to extend my personal thanks as well as those of the whole SEB to Shaun for his hard work and dedication to the Society as outgoing Animal Section Chair. It is one of the great benefits of the SEB that we get to meet scientists across the remit of experimental biology with whom we would perhaps not otherwise come into contact, and it has been a particular pleasure to work with Shaun over the past 18 months or so.

As you will hopefully have seen from various announcements, the OED (Outreach, Education and Diversity) section of the Society is increasingly active under our OED Trustee Sheila Amici-Dargan of the University of Bristol and SEB staff member Rebecca Ellerington (OED Manager). I am very keen for the SEB to provide a ‘home’ not only for biologists actively engaged in research, but also the increasing number of university staff who have a primary teaching and pedagogic focus to their work, and hence a key role in teaching and training the new generations of experimental biologists. The last few years have demonstrated not only the need but also the potential for new modes and types of teaching and methods for engaging students. I suspect many universities are seeing an increasing tendency for students to disengage with conventional lecturing formats, in effect raising the challenge of how we make learning more involving. Another challenge is the increasingly diverse range of students that we teach and a growing awareness that not all necessarily flourish equally. This is the topic of the OED Symposium ‘Decolonising and Diversifying Biosciences Education’ to be held at Robinson College, Cambridge, on 19–20 December 2022, which will examine issues including the historical legacies of colonialism on the Biosciences, the need to adopt more diverse and inclusive examples, gaps for disadvantaged students, and how biology education can better incorporate international perspectives. As active experimental scientists, we use the power of empirical experimental science to analyse the function of living systems and, indeed, the universe, which must be independent of individual or cultural viewpoints. It is our job to teach and convey how the scientific method can be used to transform our understanding of the world.

Professor Jim Murray President, Society for Experimental Biology

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