Dear member of the Ciliate Molecular Biology Research Community,

At the 2011 FASEB Ciliate Molecular Biology meeting in Crete, a number of us
discussed the need for the Tetahymena research community to come together to
promote specific initiatives and efforts that could benefit the community as
a whole.  The upshot was that we decided to establish a Tetrahymena
Strategic Planning Committee, similar in purpose to the committee that was
formed prior to the Tetrahymena Genome Sequencing Project.

The proposed committee would consist of six elected members of the
Tetrahymena research community and one invited member from outside the
ciliate molecular biology circle.  Terms would be 4 years in length, with
half of the committee being elected every two years.  Three of the founding
members would serve two-year terms and three members would serve four-year
terms.  Once the committee is formed, they will elect a chair and a vice
chair (chair-elect), as well as determine which members will serve two- and
four-year terms for the first cycle.

Elected and outside members would be expected to make a commitment to
identify and help develop goals for research community initiatives and
resources (post-genomic resource development, large scale community projects
(i.e. gene knockouts, gene silencing, protein tagging, mutagenesis,
bioinformatics, maintenance and distribution of research resources)).  One
possible duty of the committee might be to periodically generate a white
paper to highlight and to a degree prioritize the resources and tools that
need to be developed to advance research on Tetrahymena.  Another duty of
the committee might be to provide letters of endorsement for individual
investigator grant applications that focused on community resource
development (citing the white paper when appropriate), and to foster
community-based efforts to generate new research tools and community
resources.   A third objective might be to serve as a voice for the research
community, through interactions with administrators at NIH, NSF and
international funding agencies.  The charter committee would set
expectations and goals for the committee, and share this and other
information with the Ciliate Molecular Biology Community as a whole.

We would like to create this committee by early September, 2011.  With that
in mind, the period for nominating individuals will be August 9-26.  We will
contact all nominees to ask them if they want their name placed on the
ballot, and self-nomination is acceptable.  Once the ballot is assembled, it
will be distributed through the Ciliate Molecular Biology list server for
voting over a two-week period.  The voting will take place using the program
Survey Monkey.

The following people have already agreed to have their names placed on the
ballot: Bob Coyne, Doug Chalker, Ted Clark, Jim Forney, Jeff Kapler, Carolyn
Price, Kazufumi Mochizuki and Mark Winey.  Kathy Collins, Jacek Gaertig, Ed
Orias and Aaron Turkewitz were also nominated, but elected to decline at
this time.



Send your nominations by August 16 to the following two email addresses
([log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]).  We will
contact the nominee to ask whether they want their name placed on the ballot.

Jeff Kapler