One of the main strategic initiatives of EFMC was the establishment of the four Committees approved at the Council meeting in Istanbul 2006:
- Education & Training Committee (ETC) - Chair: Peter MATYUS
- European Commission R&D Initiatives Committee (ECIC) - Chair: Ferran SANZ
- Industry Liaison Committee (ILC) - Chair: Brigitte LESUR
- Information & Communication Committee (ICC) - Chair: Gerhard ECKER
At the Council meeting in Portoroz all four Committee chairs gave updates on the activities of their committees:
Education and Training Committee (ETC)
The Committee organised several round table discussions on the future of Medicinal Chemistry Teaching & Training in Europe. The ETC will also discuss and propose a definition of Medicinal Chemistry.
Another main activity is the generation of a compendium on existing undergraduate and postgraduate level training courses within Europe. For this a questionnaire on 'Teaching and Training in Medicinal Chemistry' was sent to all EFMC council members late 2006.
Unfortunately the response was not overwhelming, so there is still the possibility to provide baseline information from your country. If you wish to contribute to this project please contact Henk Timmerman at henktim@planet.nl. A report will be prepared by end of the year and published in the newsletter.
ETC would welcome your knowledge, experience and ideas. If you wish to contribute towards our objectives, please contact peter.matyus@szerves.sote.hu
Péter Mátyus (Chair)
Industry Liaison Committee (ILC)
Current main activity is the acquisition of corporate Sponsors in order to get formalised contacts to Industry. Additionally, the Council established a working group which will develop a concept for Short Courses on special topics in Medicinal Chemistry especially useful for participants from Industry. Head of the group is Peter Ettmayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Austria.
ILC would welcome your knowledge, experience and ideas. If you wish to contribute towards our objectives, please contact blesur@fr.netgrs.com
Brigitte Lesur (Chair)
European Commission R&D Initiatives Committee (ECIC)
The main goal of the Committee is to improve and strengthen the contacts of EFMC to the European Commission in order to increase the visibility of EFMC and its activities.
In addition, the ECIC will also act as a forum for discussing and promoting R&D initiatives important for Medicinal Chemistry in Europe. Currently the Committee is heavily involved in the discussions around the Innovative Medicines Initiative (see also the perspective in this issue).
The final decision on the structure, organisation and budget should be made by end of the year and first calls will be launched in early 2008.
ECIC would welcome your knowledge, experience and ideas. If you wish to contribute towards our objectives, please contact fsanz@imim.es
Ferran Sanz (Chair)
Information & Communication Committee (ICC)
The main activity of the Information & Communication Committee was the establishment of MedChemWatch – the official EFMC e-newsletter (www.efmc.info/medchemwatch). This was a huge effort and highly appreciated by the community. In Portoroz several proposals for further improvements have been made, such as including a section for presentations of SMEs and book reports. Furthermore, with the next issue we will start a series on the History of EFMC, written by Henk Timmerman.
Next priorities of the ICC will be the restructuring of the Web-page in order to make informations on our activities more readily available. Furthermore, we are actively working on a concept for a job-database and on the possibility for providing abstracts of our sponsored meetings and teaching material from our Medicinal Chemistry Schools to Corporate Members and Member Societies.
ICC would welcome your knowledge, experience and ideas. If you wish to contribute towards our objectives, please contact gerhard.f.ecker@univie.ac.at
Gerhard F.Ecker (Chair)
