History
The first conference of UKEMS was held at the University of Manchester in April 1977 and was organised by Diana Anderson. It was officially described as the 1st Annual Meeting of the UK Section of the European Environmental Mutagenesis Society (EEMS). Today UKEMS is a member society of the EEMS and the International Association of Environmental Mutagen Societies (IAEMS). There were 71 recorded delegates at the Manchester meeting, which comprised the familiar combination of invited talks (from C. Auerbach, P. Perry, M. Lyon, J.M. Parry and A. Lehmann), contributed papers and discussion sessions on assays for mutagens (led by S. Venitt, M. Fox and D. Scott). At that meeting the Society elected its first officers and formulated its plans for future activities. The society has continued to hold its annual meeting at universities in the UK since 1977, on some occasions playing host to the annual meeting of EEMS or arranging the meeting as a satellite to the 4-yearly International Conference on Environmental Mutagens (ICEM) when the latter was held in France in 1977. The society recognises outstanding service to environmental mutagenesis through the conferment of the title of UKEMS Fellow. To date, 14 scientists who have been honoured by the bestowing of this title.
There are currently around 300 active members of the society, a balanced mixture of scientists working in academia and industry. In 1986 UKEMS established the journal Mutagenesis with Jim Parry (Europe and Rest of the World) and John Heddle (North America) as editors. Subsequently, in 1993, an editorial office in Japan was established by Toshio Sofuni. In 2004 the journal went over to online manuscript submission with David H. Phillips as Editor-in-Chief and Jeffrey L. Schwartz and Makoto Hayashi as Senior Editors.
Three specialists groups are affiliated to UKEMS.
The Industrial Genotoxicology Group (IGG) was founded with the following objectives.
- to provide a forum for discussing the scientific and technical aspects of regulatory genetic toxicology tests , their development, validation and use in testing strategies
- to co-ordinate collaborative work needed to support these activities
- and to represent the general interests of industrial genetic toxicologists in discussions with other scientific groups and regulatory authorities.
The first meeting of the group was a workshop on the micronucleus assay, held at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, in 1987 and the group became formally affiliated to UKEMS in 1989. Chairs of the group have included Terry Orton, Barry Elliott, Mike O'Donovan, Leigh Henderson, Peter Jenkinson, Julie Clements and Alison Wolfreys; the current Chair is Mick Fellows. Recent meetings have covered diverse topics such as the status of short-term tumour models and novel in vivo assays, the ethical use of animals in genotoxicity testing, cytotoxicity in vitro, the in vitro micronucleus test, the Comet assay, and discussion of the Committee on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COM) draft guidelines on the strategy for testing of chemicals for mutagenicity.
The Molecular Epidemiology Group (MEG) was instigated in 1996 by Colin Garner during his presidency of UKEMS. The aims of MEG are:
- to bring together epidemiologists, clinicians, laboratory scientists and others with an interest in molecular epidemiology and to promote a multi-disciplinary approach to population-based molecular studies of environmental causes of human disease
- to provide a forum for multi-disciplinary meetings, workshops and other activities to discuss all aspects of molecular epidemiology
- to provide technical and continuing education courses
- to promote the application of quality control in molecular epidemiological studies
- and to represent the UK on issues relating to molecular epidemiology, both nationally and internationally.
Past Chairs of MEG have been Colin Garner, Peter Farmer and Chris Wild; the present Chair is Mike Routledge. The first MEG meeting was held in London in April 1996 and regular meetings, both 1-day and 2-day, have been held ever since as well as a joint conference with the British Association for Cancer Research (BACR) in 2000. Normal attendance at MEG meetings is between 60-80 delegates.
The Genome Stability Network (GSN), formerly known as the DNA Repair Network, was re-launched in 2005, under the Chairmanship of Chris Jones.
The Network exists to promote the idea that the study of genome stability is fundamental to understanding the biology of the cell and promotes the use of model organisms for research in this area. The aims of the GSN are:
- Bringing together laboratory scientists, epidemiologists, clinicians and all others with an interest in genome stability to pursue a multi-disciplinary approach.
- Promoting the use of model organisms for research in genome stability.
- Providing a forum for meetings, workshops and other activities to discuss all aspects of genome stability.Encouraging younger research workers/students to participate in the field of genome stability, eg through presentations at meetings.
- Providing a resource for interested parties new to the field of genome stability.
- Representing the field on issues relating to genome stability, both nationally and internationally and providing a commitment to public understanding of science.
The Network held its inaugural meeting in January 2005 at the LMB in Cambridge and subsequently in January 2006. The present Chair is Simon Reed.