The European Calcium Society

The start of our society followed the organization of various European Symposia on Calcium Binding Proteins in Normal and Transformed Cells, initiated under the visionary impulsion of Roland Pochet, Claus Heizmann, Jacques Haiech and Rosario Donato. In 1997 the European Calcium Society (ECS) was officially created, a web site was launched, newsletters started to be published on a regular basis, and the ECS grew.

The aim was (and still is) to develop and sustain relationships between all scientists working in the field of Ca²⁺ binding, Ca²⁺ signaling and the study of the various proteins thereby involved (the "Ca²⁺ toolkit") with special attention for the needs and the participation of the junior researchers in the field (e.g. travel fellowships, discounted membership and registration fees, poster prizes, and since 2019 an own junior ECS Board) and this all with maximal respect for gender equality.

In recent years, the ECS could always boast of a membership varying between 250 and 300 members, coming from across the globe with about two-thirds of our members located in Europe (>20 European countries) and one-third located outside Europe (>10 countries from North, Central and South America, Asia and Oceania). This further underpins the international character of our Society.

Every two years, the ECS organizes very successful scientific meetings and the alternate years at least one focused workshop. The last main ECS meeting was organized in September 2018 in Hamburg (Germany) by Andreas Guse & team, while the last workshop with physical attendance took place in Coimbra (Portugal) on September 18–20, 2019. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 pandemic, the ECS meeting scheduled in August 2020 in Cork (Ireland) was postponed till 2022. The flavor of the spirit of the meeting will nevertheless be provided through the Special Issue for BBA – Molecular Cell Research linked to the meeting (guest edited by Joachim Krebs, Jacques Haiech & Claus Heizmann). The first articles have been published, including an in memoriam attributed to Sir Michael Berridge. The full and still developing collection of articles can be found here.

Despite these challenges, three successful initiatives have been launched and organized. All these events were, and in the case of the webinars still are, very well attended with >100 participants.

• The 2-weekly ECS webinar series have been launched and continue to be organized by Martin Bootman, Emily Coode and Malene Brohus. The ECS webinar series will now also include junior speakers;
• The 1st junior ECS symposium, an exciting 2-day online-only event, has been organized by the junior ECS Board on October 20th-21st 2020. A meeting report, prepared by the jECS Board/meeting organizers, of the jECS meeting will be published in the Special Issue of BBA – Mol Cell Res;
• An online ECS Mini-Symposium “Frontiers in Ca2+ signaling”, dedicated to the memory of Sir Michael Berridge and of Annette Draeger, has been organized by Geert Bultynck, Jan Parys & team on December 15th 2020;

Moreover, the ECS Board has been updated. We express our extreme gratitude to former ECS Board members, Volker Gerke, Steve Moss, Jan Parys (as Secretary-General) and Catherine Leclerc (as President). They are replaced by Eniko Kallay, Barbara Niemeyer, and Geert Bultynck (as Secretary-General). Andreas Guse, an ECS Board member since 2016, replaced Catherine Leclerc as President. jECS Board, with Malene Brohus and Björn-Philipp Diercks as spokespersons, also welcomes four new members: Adelina Ivanova, Annalisa Bellandi, Geoffrey Woollard and Jenny van der Wijst, who will replace Pablo Sáez, Felicity Davis, Luca Hegedus, Roya Tadayon, Kimberley Stephenson and Christoph Brenker.

For 2021, we have three ECS-related events:

• two ECS workshops have been planned:
  
  • 1. by N. Prevarskaya, D. Gkika & team on “Ion Channels & Cancer” (originally planned for 25-27 May 2021) -> postponed till 2022, though a smaller more regional event might still be planned dependent on the conditions
  • 2. by T. Cali & team on “Mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling in health and disease” (originally planned for 17-19 June 2021) -> further communication will follow; potentially held online
• a jECS workshop on Calcium Signaling in Inflammation (Hamburg, Germany) to be held in September 2021 -> further communication will follow; potentially held online

For 2022, we will have our 16^th International Meeting in Cork, Ireland (chair of the organizing committee: John Mackrill; chair of the scientific committee: Geert Bultynck), preceded by a junior pre-meeting day, organized by our junior ECS Board!

For 2023, we look forward to proposals and interests from ECS members for potential workshops. The ECS will support and help with the organization and promotion of those events, but we like to hear from the local organizers as well as from the community about any wish or novel ideas that could be implemented!

More information on all our activities will be diffused via [ECS-post]: InfoLetters, this website and other media (such as the Slack Forum, our Facebook page and twitter account).
We hope so to further develop our community of Ca²⁺ researchers!

Very sincerely yours,
Geert Bultynck & Andreas Guse,
Secretary General & President