Published on: 03-06-2013

Dear TIAFT members,

About a month ago TIAFT celebrated its 50th anniversary of TIAFT in the Guildhall in London. By all accounts this was an excellent meeting, superbly organised by the LTG. About 220 people attended, including 8 past, present and future TIAFT presidents. The scientific presentations on the history and state-of-the-art of different aspects of analytical and forensic toxicology were excellent, as was the social part. It was a great opportunity to reflect on the past and future of TIAFT and to meet many TIAFT members and former officers who have contributed so much to make TIAFT the great association that it is. You will read a more detailed report in the Bulletin. I would like to thank the organising committee who worked very hard for the success of the meeting, our generous sponsors and the GTFCh for making an important financial contribution to the anniversary meeting.

On this occasion, the participants received a book on the history of TIAFT. The PDF of this book is available on the website.

We are now coming closer to the annual meeting in Madeira. Now all submitters have received notice of acceptance (or not) of their abstracts and the board has selected five DCF colleagues for a grant to attend the meeting.

TIAFT has other programs for assisting developing countries, like giving support to regional meetings and giving assistance in method development in laboratories in developing countries. But at this time, the board has not received any applications. In the latter program TIAFT will send a young scientist for a short stay to help develop a method in a lab in a developing country, and pay the costs for flight and stay. I encourage colleagues in developing countries to submit applications, so we can get this project going.

We had some unfortunate delays in implementing an online application and payment system to process memberships, but we hope it will be up and running by summer. A future new initiative on the website are the job postings: members who are looking for a job can post their CV and institutions that have a job opening can ask to post them on the website.

Last but not least, we are looking for nominations for the Alan Curry award and the TIAFT achievement award. Please send your nominations before July 1st, to me for the Alan Curry award and to Prof. Olaf Drummer for the TIAFT achievement award.

See you in Madeira!

Alain Verstraete,
TIAFT President