Science Council of the Marine Biological Laboratory
Minutes, January 20, 2007
Present: Paul De Weer, Tim Mitchison, Rudolf Oldenbourg, Larry Rome, Peter Smith; Catherine Carr (via phone)
Absent: Barbara Ehrlich, Don Faber, Barbara Furie, and Chris Neill
Ex Officio: Gary Borisy, John Dowling, Bill Beers
MBL Invited Staff: Eliezar Dawidowicz
The meeting was called to order at 9:05 am.
1. Minutes from meeting on October 21, 2006
The minutes were accepted with a correction under item 6: “Director’s Report” changing “year round research program” to “resident research program” plus a caveat raised by Peter Smith as to who steps in for the Chair of the Science Council when this person is unable to attend the Trustees meeting. This was further discussed under old business at the current meeting.
2. Report from the CASO
(i) The Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees will meet on February 2, 2007 for a forward-looking review of the Bay Paul Center and the plan to move into the area of microbial ecology. A report will be prepared for presentation to the full board.
John Dowling questioned whether this sounds like a responsibility of Science Council.
Paul De Weer stressed that the review by the Academic Affairs Committee should be forward looking, as it involves committing resources towards particular goals.
Gary Borisy pointed out that he and Mark Fishman had struggled with this potential overlap with Science Council, which is mandated by the Board to review Centers at the MBL.
Gary indicated that Mark Fishman believes that the Academic Affairs Committee should guide future investments of MBL in science. In order to do this one must understand the baseline and then discuss future plans.
Thus the emphasis of the Academic Affairs Committee will be forward looking reviews.
Gary then presented a draft agenda of the upcoming meeting of the Academic Affairs Committee.
Paul De Weer stated that members of Science Council should have a copy of the document – written with major input from Science Council – defining the role of the Academic Affairs Committee.
Paul also indicated that prior to his stepping down from Science Council, he will prepare a ring binder containing essential procedures and papers for new member of the Council.
(ii) Renovations of the Whitman-Rowe Building are on schedule.
(iii) Applications for summer lab space seem to be where they were last year.
(iv) Bill Beers asked Lenny Dawidowicz to comment on Fellowship applications.
The number of applications appears to be comparable with that in 2006.
3. Applications for Corporation Membership
Clare Waterman-Storer - approved
Dana Ono – approved
It was noted that the Corporation membership is aging and shrinking in number.
John Dowling indicated that he will form a committee to look into this.
The suggestion was made that approval of an application for Corporation membership by Science Council need only a formal ratification by the Corporation. Gary Borisy asked if the by-laws could be amended such that Science Council could make decisions on membership, which would then need only to be ratified by the Corporation.
4. Education Report
Catherine Carr gave the following report.
(a) Role of Education Committee.
Don Faber has assembled a list of names for new members of the Education Committee, which he will forward to Gary Borisy.
(b) Catherine reported that a search for two new directors of the Neural Systems & Behavior Course to start in 2008 has been narrowed to two excellent prospects (who have agreed in principle): Drs. James Knierim (UT-Houston) and Paul Katz (Georgia State). Their CVs were distributed to members of Science Council.
Science Council unanimously endorsed this recommendation.
5. Personnel Matters
[…]
6. Director’s Report.
Gary Borisy referred to item 6 (page 3) in the Science Council minutes from October 21, 2006.
On page 4 of those minutes under potential areas for expansion there were four bulleted items. Gary provided the following updates.
• Biodiversity & Biomedical Informatics.
A major effort in this area was to develop a program around the Encyclopedia of Life. The MBL part of this is the uBio Project (Universal Biological Indexer and Organizer http://www.ubio.org/index.php?pagename=people).
This effort has now received initial funding for 2 years in the following amounts from the
Sloan Foundation, $2.5 million
McArthur Foundation, $10 million
for the following consortium:
Marine Biological Laboratory
The Field Museum, Chicago
Smithsonian Institution
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard
Bioheritage Library Consortium
This information is not public at this time, and will be announced later with appropriate publicity.
Gary indicated that related to this effort he will bring a proposal to Science Council to create a Program in Biodiversity at the MBL.
• Marine Genomics
This topic is still at the talking stage.
The MBL has identified a potential recruit in this area, Paola Oliveri a senior post-doc in Eric Davidson’s lab at CalTech.
Gary asked what would it take to create a viable group in this area. He has sounded out members of the community to ascertain if one could create a critical mass in the broad area of marine genomics at the MBL. Responses to this question to date have been positive.
John Dowling asked about the recent visit of members of the MBL Senior Staff to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Gary responded that the visit had been extremely positive. The plan was to strengthen ties between CSHL and the MBL with increased interactions between the two institutions.
7. Old Business
(a) Appointments: privacy requests vs. public minutes. This issue had been discussed under “Personnel Matters” where it was suggested that personnel matters be placed in a separate archive separate from the public Science Council minutes posted on the MBL website.
(b) Peter Smith questioned whether the issue as to who should report to the Board of Trustees when the chair of Science Council (who is ex officio member of the Board) is unable to attend, had been settled. He suggested the alternatives (“a scientist” e.g. John Dowling vs. “an administrator” e.g. Bill Beers) be discussed at the next scheduled meeting.
(c) Further discussion of Corporation membership criteria, benefits, and application forms. John Dowling indicated that he is assembling a committee to review these issues.
8. New Business
Peter Smith provided an update on progress in formulating a proposal for a Center for Cellular Dynamics. He raised the question as to what would be the distinguishing features of this center and indicated that this would be in the areas of
Cell Dynamics
Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Metabolic Biology and Disease.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:25 pm.
Respectfully submitted
E.A. Dawidowicz
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