The University Jean Moulin, part of the University of Lyon was the venue of the 16th International Symposium on Bioluminescence and Chemiluminescence, 19-23 April 2010.
The course of the Symposium has been greatly affected by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruptions in Iceland. The throw of volcanic ashes caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe for one week from 15 April.
The expected attendance (registered people) was more than 180 people from 26 countries (Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA). However, on Monday 19 April at the end of the morning, only around twenty delegates (in addition to people from Lyon) were present. At the end of the day about thirty attendees could be counted. In the end, it is a little more than sixty people who succeeded in participating in the Symposium.
Initially, 151 scientific presentations organized in common and parallel sessions were scheduled, comprising 6 plenary lectures, 7 keynote lectures, 58 oral communications and 80 posters.
These volcanic impetuous activities forced us to change and adapt the scientific programme by the hour. Finally, thanks to the support and the help of the attendees (some of them proposed and/or agreed to give unexpectedly presentations), 28 oral papers were presented.
The Marlene-DeLuca-Prizes were given by Dr Fritz Berthold with his company BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES. The International Society for Bioluminescence and Chemiluminescence chose a small committee from the society to judge with Dr. Berthold the oral and poster presentations. They recommended two winners and Dr. Fritz Berthold himself awarded the prizes during the gala dinner on Thursday April 22 at Hotel Chateau Perrache. The winners were Laura Mezzanotte (University of Bologna, Italy) and Ken Yokawa (University of Bonn, Germany and University of Kitakyushu, Japan) for their outstanding presentations.
Thanks are due to John Wiley & Sons for publishing the extended abstracts of the accepted papers. All the attendees received a copy of the special issue and in addition, due to the exceptional circumstances they kindly accepted to make the special issue free on their website for all the registered people.
Thanks are due also to all the sponsors who supported the Symposium in various ways (ACL Instruments, Berthold Detection Systems, Berthold Technologies, Bluestar, BMG Labtech, CovaLab, GE Healthcare, Ozyme, Promega, Setaram, Tecan).
Finally, a big thank to all the attendees who assured of their support, understanding and help during this Symposium which was held under difficult conditions. A special thank also to the local organizing committee and to the members of the International Advisory Committee who have had the possibility to attend the Symposium (Prof. Aldo Roda, Dr. Bert Zomer, Dr. Elisa Michelini, Dr. Osamu Nozaki ). Thanks to all of them, the atmosphere at the Symposium was good-humoured despite a difficult situation and with high-quality presentations.
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