International Commission on Indoor Fungi
The mere facts that some 25% of social housing (i.e. more than 14 million units) in the 27 member states of the European Union is suffering from dampness and molds and that approximately 4.6 million of current US asthma cases are estimated to be attributable to dampness and molds exposure underline that indoor molds should be considered as a widespread and profound societal problem.
In the next decennia, energy efficiency will dominate residential building and construction. The European Commission has set a clear ambition in energy efficiency, i.e. a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emission and energy consumption in new buildings in 2020. The Copenhagen Conference in 2009 underlined that climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time and that deep cuts in the global emissions are needed to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius at the end of this century . It has been recognized internationally that clean production, increased green energy ánd energy efficient use will be key instruments to combat climate change.
IUMS
The INTERNATIONAL UNION OF MICROBIOLOGICAL SOCIETIES is one of the 29 Scientific Unions of the International Council of Science (ICSU).
The scientific activities of the Union are conducted by the three Divisions of Bacteriology & Applied Microbiology (BAM), Mycology and Virology and by six specialist international committees, eight international commissions and two international federations.
Their major activities include the classification and nomenclature of bacteria, fungi and viruses, food microbiology, medical microbiology and diagnostics, culture collections, education, and biological standardization.
The Divisions are responsible for the organization of their International Congresses (International Congress of Bacteriology and Applied Microbiology, International Congress of Mycology, and International Congress of Virology) and the commitees, commissions and federations (COMCOFs) organize their own meetings. For more information visit www.iums.org.
Courses and workshops
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Date and Location: March 4-6, 2013 (2 1/2 days), Knoxville TN USA.. Food and Indoor Mycology Workshop. This course is designed to give fungal identification skills to corporate, plant and contract manufacturing microbiologists. Emphasis will be placed on microorganisms of significance to the beverage and food manufacturing processing and environment as well as in indoor air quality. For more information visit: http://www.bcnlabs.com/index.php/workshops
- Date and Location: June 2013, Ottawa, Canada. A course in fungal identification - Sponsored by CBS Fungal Biodiversity Centre (Netherlands) and Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, Research Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Canada. The course will be postponed until 2014. Read more >>
- Date and Location: 14 -18 October 2013, CBS, CBS Fungal Biodiversity Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands - A course in fungal identification (in English) more information click here
