SBIC News

Dear SBIC members, colleagues, and friends,   

We are pleased to provide this edition of our newsletter published by the Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (SBIC), which aims to keep you up to date with important developments in our society and other opportunities in biological inorganic chemistry. We hope that you will continue to support SBIC or join SBIC as a new member. We would also like to invite you to pass the newsletter on to students and colleagues and if you have news to share in future newsletters, please get in touch. 

Please Note: SBIC is Under New Management!

We are pleased to announce that SBIC is now under management of the Swiss Chemical Society. SBIC remains the same independent international society promoting Biological Inorganic Chemistry, this change only is in the organization managing our membership and finances. We have made this change to make more efficient use of SBIC's resources. The contact email remains the same at [email protected], but this email will take you to our new management team. 

Your Personal Contacts

• Sarah Schmitz: member administration and invoices
• Céline Wittwer: communication/website and events
• Robert Meyer: finances
• David Spichiger: collaborations and legal issues, coordination of SBIC tasks

As with all changes, there are always some adjustments to make. You likely received emails last December regarding the renewal of your membership. Some of those emails were arriving automatically from the previous management system, and did not lead to the correct information. Please find the correct link to pay your membership fee for 2026 here: https://scg.paykonzept.ch/en/pay?tid=6a4f1f34

The updated annual membership fee for 2026 is 140 USD/year (CHF 114). The discounted membership fee is 42 USD/year (CHF 34) which is applied to students, emeritus faculty, or faculty from low GDP countries (GDP less than $20,000 per capita). 

We thank you for bearing with us as we navigate this change. Please do visit the link above to renew your membership or become a new member if you have not done so yet for 2026. Memberships play a critical role in allowing SBIC to support awards and conferences in our field. 

Educational Resources for SBIC Members

We encourage members to visit our educational resources webpage where we have accumulated links to pedagogical information and lectures to aid in teaching inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry. We will continue to add content to this area, and we also invite recommendations and submissions. If you are an SBIC member, you have access to members-only content which is continuously growing. Follow this link!

Call for SBIC Early Career Award Nominees

The Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (SBIC) invites nominations for the 2026 SBIC Early Career Award (ECA). The two most recent awardees will present award lectures at the next ICBIC. To be eligible, the nominee must be no more than 15 years post-Ph.D. at the nomination deadline. Successful nominees will have accomplished distinguished research in biological inorganic chemistry at an early career stage. To be eligible for the award, the candidate must hold SBIC membership since the prior ICBIC. The selection will be made by a review panel consisting of the SBIC President, Past President, and five additional senior SBIC members, representative of the disciplinary and geographic diversity of our society.

The SBIC Early Career Award is currently open for nominations with a deadline March 31, 2026. Please send your nomination to the SBIC Secretary, Kara Bren, [email protected] and Cc the SBIC Office, [email protected] 

Nomination Procedure

     The following nomination materials submitted electronically in one PDF file:

• 3 Letters of nomination/support (not to exceed 2 A4 pages each) describing the accomplishments of the candidate that meet the criterion of "distinguished research in biological inorganic chemistry." Self-nomination is also permitted. 
• Curriculum vitae of candidate, including a full list of publications (year of award of Ph.D. must be included on CV)
• Copies of no more than two publications by the candidate as corresponding author that support the nomination

Note on eligibility: Career breaks will be recognized, and applications are particularly encouraged from those whose career has spanned a break due to caring responsibilities or personal circumstances e.g. a period of parental/adoption leave, family commitments, illness, or other exceptional circumstances. Please contact Kara Bren with questions regarding eligibility for extensions for these reasons.

Congratulations

We are happy to highlight recent successes and recognitions of our community. If you have received an award or know of someone in bioinorganic chemistry who has received recognition for their work, please email the information to Kara Bren ([email protected]). It is great to see how many bioinorganic chemists are recognized for the hard work and achievements – congratulations everyone!

• Ana Maria Da Costa Ferreira (University of São Paolo): Rheinboldt-Hauptmann Award from the Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo.
• Ana Maria Da Costa Ferreira (University of São Paolo): Elected Member of the Brazilian Academy of Science (ABC).
• Ariel Furst (MIT): 2025 Jonathan L. Sessler Award for Emerging Leaders in Bioinorganic and Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry.
• “Nonheme iron oxo oxidants” team: Awarded the 2025 Dalton Horizon Prize for their discovery and characterization of reactive ligands for high-valent iron-oxo oxidants. The team is for work of the following researchers for their work at the indicated institutions: 
  Swart Lab (Universitat de Girona): Faiza Ahsan, Mehmet Jahja, Sami Mahri, Prof. Marcel Swart; 
  Que Lab(University of Minnesota): Dr. Bittu Chandra, Dr. Abhishek Das, Dr. Nabhendu Pal, Prof. Lawrence Que, Yuan Sheng ; 
  Guo Lab (Carnegie Mellon University): Prof. Yisong Guo, Dr. Jin Xiong; 
  X-Ray Crystallography Laboratory (University of Minnesota): Dr. Victor G. Young

ICBIC Report

Long Beach in sunny Southern California welcomed the 21st International Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry (ICBIC21), which attracted 525 participants from more than twenty countries July 28 - August 1, 2025. The five-day scientific program featured 10 plenary lectures, SBIC Early Career Award lectures by Kyle Lancaster and Amie Boal, 47 keynotes, 190 invited talks, and 62 oral presentations selected from abstract submissions, delivered across five to six parallel sessions. The meeting also included three poster sessions showcasing 196 posters.

A major highlight of ICBIC21 was the special Tuesday evening Roundtable, where Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief of Science, and Harry Gray engaged in a stimulating discussion about the current state of science today and a look towards the future, moderated by Alison Butler (see photo below). Other notable sessions included the well-received “50 Years of Iron–Thiolate Chemistry” and “Synthetic Systems” sessions as well as plenary lectures by Akif Tezcan and Amy Palmer. On Wednesday afternoon, the SBIC Early Career Researcher Symposium—sponsored by CRC Press—featured presentations from 12 outstanding young scientists.

The conference also offered memorable non-scientific moments, including many scenic strolls along the beach and a highly successful outdoor conference dinner, complete with a live band that had attendees dancing the night away.

The ICBIC21 organizers extend their sincere thanks to SBIC for their support, to the University of California, Irvine for their ongoing partnership and financial contributions, and to all our sponsors. Most importantly, we thank all participants for traveling to Southern California and contributing to the success of the scientific program. We recognize these are challenging times, and we deeply appreciate everyone’s engagement and enthusiasm.

LABIC Report     

The IX Latin American Meeting on Biological Inorganic Chemistry (IX LABIC) partially took place on November 4-8, 2024. The event was held at the Palacio de las Convenciones, in La Habana, Cuba, and it was celebrated jointly with the meeting of the Cuban Chemical Society (SCQ) and the Latin American Symposium on Coordination and Organometallic Chemistry (SiLQCOM). Dr. Alicia Díaz from the University of La Habana acted as chair of this meeting. We greatly appreciate the support of SBIC to celebrate IX LABIC in a country that had never had the opportunity to have this meeting. Unfortunately, due to the hurricane that hit the island of Cuba on November 5, IX LABIC could only have two sessions in person, while the remainder of the program was cancelled due to the power outage affecting the whole island. Still, the LABIC Scientific Committee organized a version of IX LABIC online, which was held over Zoom on December 16-17, 2024, and streamed via YouTube to maximize its outreach.

The conference featured 4 Plenary Lectures (2 in person, 2 online), 13 Invited Lectures (7 in person, 6 online), 14 Oral Contributions (3 in person, 11 online) and 14 Poster Blitz videos (all online).

The Poster Blitzes were 3-minute videos that each poster presenter recorded and sent in advance for the IX LABIC online program. The recordings were projected in the online program and participants were on the Zoom session to answer questions at the end. This solution allowed students to share their science and get feedback in real time in the online mode. 

We gratefully acknowledge SBIC for the travel grants awarded to students to attend IX LABIC. The LABIC Scientific Committee managed the call for applications and selection.            

Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (JBIC) – Call for Papers!

JBIC is the well-reputed journal of our society with Nils Metzler-Nolte is as Editor-in-Chief. Nils welcomes manuscripts with high-impact results for publication in our journal. By submission of impactful articles to JBIC you demonstrate your active support of SBIC.

Featured articles:

10.1007/s00775-022-01983-y
Gold drugs as colistin adjuvants in the fight against MCR-1 producing bacteria
This is a paper from the SBIC president, Professor Hongzhe Sun

10.1007/s00775-023-02025-x
Dinuclear gold(I) complexes based on carbene and diphosphane ligands: bis[2-(dicyclohexylphosphano)ethyl]amine complex inhibits the proteasome activity, decreases stem cell markers and spheroid viability in lung cancer cells
And more interesting work on Au compounds, this time as potential anticancer agents, complementing the antibacterial work from Professor Sun (above).

Call for JBIC Cover Art 

Corresponding authors of any paper published in JBIC are invited and encouraged to make a suggestion for cool JBIC cover art. The winning cover art will be shown on the cover of JBIC completely free of cost for the authors! The only condition is that the corresponding author is a member of SBIC. For suggestions and further information, please get in touch with JBIC Editor-in-Chief Nils Metzler-Nolte ([email protected]). 

JBIC is looking forward to receiving your designs – so get creative everyone!

For your diary: Upcoming conferences

• Metallocofactors Gordon Research Conference, Portland, ME, USA June 7-12, 2026
• Gordon Research Conference on Metals in Medicine, Andover, NH, USA, June 21-26, 2026
• Chemistry and Biology of Tetrapyrroles Gordon Research Conference, Newport, RI, USA, July 12-17, 2026
• EuroBIC-18, Groningen, Netherlands, July 12-17, 2026
• 14th International Conference for Hydrogenase and Other Redox Metalloenzymes, Leicester, UK, July 26 - August 30, 2026
• LABIC-10, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 13-16, 2026
• AsBIC-12, Jaipur, India, December 16-20, 2026
• ICBIC-22, York, UK, 2027
• ICBIC-23, Jeju Island, South Korea, 2029

Please contact us if you are running a conference, symposium, or workshop to include in future Newsletters and on the SBIC website calendar.

Call for applications for conference support

SBIC financially supports international meetings on subjects related to Biological Inorganic Chemistry organized by members of our society. At many of these conferences, SBIC members will pay discounted registration fees and students and early career members may be eligible for travel awards.  Please see guidelines under conference support on our website.

To be eligible for conference support, the conference organizers need to be SBIC members and apply by contacting SBIC Treasurer Janet Morrow. Please include a detailed conference program. Diversity in gender, age, race, ethnicity, geography, and research topics covering a broad range of biological inorganic chemistry is a prerequisite to obtain SBIC funding. Adequate representation from underrepresented groups, including women for Plenary and Keynote lectures, in particular, and the program, in general, must be demonstrated. The financial support by SBIC must be acknowledged. 

For ICBIC, AsBIC, EuroBIC and LABIC, special funding rules apply. Please contact the SBIC Treasurer Janet Morrow for details.

National meetings and those organized by national chemical societies are not eligible for SBIC support, including Pacifichem Symposia.

TARGET DATES for applications: March 1 and October 1 each year.

Stay in touch with SBIC: Follow us on our Social Media channels!

Prof. Abhishek Dey, IACS, Kolkata is managing the SBIC social media presence. Suggested contributions may be directed to him at [email protected] or to SBIC Secretary Kara Bren at [email protected]

You have been included in this mailing list as a current member of the society or because you have attended a conference of the BIC series (ICBIC, EuroBIC, AsBIC, LABIC). If you would prefer not to receive this information, please let us know and we will remove your email address from the distribution list. If you would like to receive the latest SBIC news on your social media feeds, like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/officialSBIC/, or follow us on “X” https://x.com/sbicofficial/

If you would like to advertise your events or anything biological inorganic chemistry-related, please email Kara Bren with all the relevant information.