Dear colleague,
over the past decades, Förster resonance energy transfer has evolved into a routine tool in the life sciences. Inspired by the recent joint international study on the precision and accuracy of FRET measurements [1] and after discussions with many colleagues, we are excited to take the next step and announce the launch of the FRET community (https://www.fret.community/). The aims of the community are:
● to advance the presence of FRET studies in spectroscopy and imaging among the scientific community
● to serve as a hub for the dissemination of news, developments and activities within the community
● to organize joint community-driven experimental and computational challenges
● to promote sharing of data and tools and to encourage community-driven development of analysis tools
● and to establish guidelines for documentation and validation of experiments, analyses and simulations.
We hope that you will join us in working towards these goals and become a part of the growing community. To integrate all needs and wishes of the FRET community in a bottom-up approach, an advisory board will be established via online elections whose function will be to plan, initiate and coordinate the activities of the FRET community. The advisory board will consist of elected members at all career stages and will include academic and non-academic researchers.
Please save the following dates:
Roadmap for the election of the advisory board:
Until January 27: Nomination of candidates
From January 28 to February 10: Election period
Meetings of the FRET community in 2020:
February 15: Organizational meeting at the BPS2020, San Diego, USA
September 9-10: Satellite meeting to the MAF2020, Gothenburg, SE
Details for the elections:
To participate in the elections, a membership is required that can be obtained by a registration on the FRET community webpage (https://www.fret.community/). Starting today, you may nominate yourself or propose a colleague as a candidate for the advisory board. Further details about the organization of the FRET community are given in the bylaws.
Details for the meetings:
To promote, coordinate and realize activities of the FRET community, two meetings are planned in 2020 at:
(i) the Biophysical Society Meeting (BPS) in San Diego, USA, on February 15th 2020 (Room 29C at the San Diego Convention Center from 11am – 12pm on Subgroup Saturday)
(ii) the International Conference on Methods and Applications in Fluorescence (MAF2020) in Gothenburg, Sweden, on September 9-10, 2020.
We are looking forward to welcoming you in the FRET community. Register today and stay tuned for future activities.
Sincerely yours,
Anders Barth, Thomas Peulen, Hugo Sanabria and Claus Seidel
[1.] B. Hellenkamp, et al., Precision and accuracy of single-molecule FRET measurements—a multi-laboratory benchmark study. Nature Methods 15, 669 (2018).