Masatsune Kainosho (1942-2025) and Robert Shulman (1924-2026)

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The ICMRBS Council is saddened to learn of the recent passing of two of our colleagues, Masatsune Kainosho and Robert Shulman, who each made numerous discoveries in NMR spectroscopy and played fundamental roles for the ICMRBS.

Masatsune Kainosho (1942-2025), Professor Emeritus of Tokyo Metropolitan University, an Honorary Member of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Society of Japan and former President of the Society.  Prof. Kainosho made outstanding and lasting contributions to the pioneering and development of biological nuclear magnetic resonance research, particularly with elegant isotopic labeling approaches.  He played a pivotal role in the successful organization of ICMRBS held in Japan, including the 18th ICMRBS in Tokyo and the 27th ICMRBS in Kyoto.  More information can be found on the attached memorial from our colleagues Peter Wright and Mitsu Ikura ( Kainosho Memorial Note ) as well as at this website established by Prof. Kainosho’s students and staff ( memorial website ).

Robert Shulman (1924-2026), Sterling Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and member of the U.S. National Academy of Science and National Academy of Medicine.  Through his work at Bell Labs and Yale, Prof. Shulman made fundamental advances in biological NMR spectroscopy, particularly as applied to study metabolism in living organisms.  Together with Mildred Cohn (1913-2009) and Oleg Jardetzky (1929-2016), he organized the first ICMRBS in 1964, for which all three are recognized on the ICMRBS Founders Medal.  More information can be in an obituary ( Yale Obituary ) and a 2024 profile ( Yale profile ) from Yale University.

Both Kai and Bob were deeply appreciated by many in the ICMRBS community and they will be missed.  We extend our heartfelt condolences to their families, colleagues, and friends.

ICMRBS 2026 Founders Medal – Nominations Open

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Dear Colleagues, 

On behalf of the International Council on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems (ICMRBS), we invite you to nominate outstanding young magnetic resonance spectroscopists for the 2026 Founders’ Medal, https://icmrbs.ws.gc.cuny.edu/founders-medal/. This prestigious award was established in 2002 by ICMRBS to recognize exceptional contributions by young scientists to the development and progress of the field of magnetic resonance in biological systems. The awardee will be presented with a medal and U.S. $3,000 at the 31st ICMRBS meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on August 23-27, 2026, https://icmrbs2026.org/. The awardee will be invited to present a lecture at the conference. The awardee should be no more than 12 years post-Ph.D., plus up to one year for each child, at the time of the ICMRBS meeting.

Nominations should include the following and be submitted to meihong@mit.edu by Friday April 24, 2026: 

  • a description of the work (≤ 3 pages) serving as the basis for the nomination, indicating the 5 most important publications of the nominee. Self-nominations are not accepted.
  • the nominee’s CV (≤ 3 pages). 
  • the nominee’s publication list.

We hope that you can take a moment to nominate the most accomplished young magnetic resonance spectroscopists, to help keep our field vibrant and innovative.  

 

Best wishes, 

Mei Hong, Chair, ICMRBS Founders Medal Committee

Updates: ICMRBS 2026 Davos & 2028 Atlanta

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We are less than a year away from the next ICMRBS, making this a good time to remind the community of timings of our next two conferences:

32nd ICMRBS – Davos, Switzerland – Aug 23-27, 2026 (conference website)

33rd ICMRBS – Atlanta, USA – Summer 2028 (conference website)

In addition, we will be soliciting bids for the 34th ICMRBS – slated to be held in 2030 – from groups of NMR scientists interested in hosting this meeting.  As per the geographic rotation of past meetings in this series, bids will be opened to teams offering to host this conference in Australasia.  For more information, please check this page with information for prospective organizers or contact the ICMRBS chair, Kevin Gardner (mail link).

 

ICMRBS 2028 – Requests for bids

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We are currently soliciting bids for the 33rd ICMRBS, scheduled for 2028 in the Americas (North, Central, or South).  The location of the meeting will be decided at the ICMRBS Council meeting to be held during the August 18-23, 2024 conference in Seoul, South Korea.  At that meeting, bids to host the 2028 ICMRBS meeting will be considered from all interested consortia.

More information on the process can be found at this page or provided by email to the ICMRBS Council Chairperson, Muriel Delepierre (Pasteur Institute).  

KVR Chary (1954-2022)

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The ICMRBS Council is saddened to learn of the passing of our colleague KVR Chary, Director of IISER Berhampur and Chair of the XXI ICMRBS in Hyderabad in 2005.  He and his contributions to the NMR community, both in India and more broadly, were appreciated by many and he will be missed.  The ICMRBS community extends our condolences to his family, colleagues, and friends.

29th ICMRBS: Aug 21-25, 2022 – Boston

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We are pleased to announced that the 29th ICMRBS will now go ahead in Boston, Sunday to Thursday August 21-25, 2022.  Mei Hong, Art Palmer, and Mike Summers have kindly agreed to co-chair the 29th ICMRBS, with advice from Gerhard Wagner and Bob Griffin.  A conference website has been established at http://www.icmrbs2022.org and will be updated with new information as it becomes available. Updates will also be provided through Twitter (@ICMRBS) and the ICMRBS mailing list; contact Kevin.Gardner@icmrbs.org to have your name added.

 

2020 ICMRBS Founders Medal Presentations now available

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2020 ICMRBS Founders Medal Awardees Paul Schanda (IST Austria) and Nicholas Cox (Australian National University) recently presented their award presentations by webinar in Sept 2021 on account of COVID-related postponement of the Boston ICMRBS meeting.  Their presentations are now available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/VnalqtuRxKE.  Congratulations to Paul and Nick for their accomplishments in the field of biological magnetic resonance!

 

Now available: Job postings

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As a service to the biological magnetic resonance community, we’ve started providing a place here to post job openings – see the entry in the tab above or click here.  We welcome postings for academic or industrial positions using a substantial degree of magnetic resonance in biological systems, broadly defined.  Current postings as of June 2021 include opportunities at the University of Minnesota (tenure-track faculty), CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (research-track faculty/facility director), and MPI for Biophysical Chemistry (Ph.D. students and postdocs).

Postings will be made listed on this site for up to 60 days and will not be announced by email to avoid saturating recipients.  Please submit postings to kgardner@gc.cuny.edu –

 

Boston meeting further postponed to 2022

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Dear Colleagues,
 
With the health and safety of our attendees and community in mind, and taking into account the ongoing uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers of the 29th ICMRBS and ICMRBS Council have decided to further postpone the 29th ICMRBS Conference to August 2022, at a date to be advised in the near future.
We are disappointed to have to make this decision, as the opportunity to present your science and make new connections is a valuable part of meeting face-to-face. However, the safety and health of all participants is our first priority.
 
Implications of the postponement of the 29th ICMRBS to August 2022:
 
Hotel Reservations at the Westin Copley Place. If you have already reserved a guest room at the Westin Copley, please cancel your reservation without penalty at your earliest convenience. Cancellation instructions were included in your reservation confirmation message. If you need assistance, please contact icmrbs@sciencemanagers.com.

Submitted Abstracts. Poster and oral abstracts submitted for the conference will remain on file and available for review/consideration for the postponed meeting. You may edit your submitted abstract at any time by returning to the online submission at www.icmrbs2020.org. We also can assist you to withdraw completely so that you may make a new submission in the future; please contact icmrbs@sciencemanagers.com.

Founders Medal 2020. The 2020 recipients, Paul Schanda and Nick Cox, were previously announced last October. They will present their Founders Medal lectures in two separate webinars in late August 2021. Dates for these webinars will be announced in mid-2021.

Program for the Postponed Conference in 2022. We hope to keep the existing program in place to the greatest degree possible. Once the dates of the 2022 conference are finalised, we will work with our planned plenary and invited speakers to confirm their participation.
 
Subsequent Conferences. The 30th and 31st ICMRBS meetings in Seoul, South Korea, and Davos, Switzerland, will be held in 2024 and 2026, respectively. We are very grateful to the organisers of these two conferences for their cooperation in postponing each of them by two years.
 
If you have any concerns regarding arrangements of the further postponed 29th ICMRBS which are not addressed above, please contact icmrbs@sciencemanagers.com.
Take care and stay tuned for updated information regarding the 29th ICMRBS in Boston.  For continuing updates on this, along with information on webinars and other MR-related events, please contact kgardner@gc.cuny.edu to be added to the mailing list.
 
Regards,
Gerhard Wagner. Chair, ICMRBS XXIX
Bob Griffin, Mei Hong, Ann McDermott, Art Palmer, Mike Summers. Co-Chairs, ICMRBS XXIX
Ray Norton. Chair, ICMRBS Council

 

2020 ICMRBS Founders’ Medalists announced

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We’re delighted to announce that the Founders’ Medal selection committee of ICMRBS [Mei Hong (chair), Frances Separovic, Art Palmer, Ichio Shimada and Matthias Ernst] has selected two outstanding medalists for 2020, Paul Schanda and Nicholas Cox. 

Paul Schanda, currently a principal investigator in solid-state NMR at the Institute of Structural Biology in Grenoble, is recognized for his achievement in developing solid-state NMR techniques for studying protein dynamics and applying these techniques to understand membrane protein transporters, chaperones, and enzyme complexes.

Nicholas Cox, currently a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at the Australian National University, is recognized for his achievement in developing and applying high-field EPR techniques to elucidate water splitting in oxidative photosynthesis and to the study of metal cofactors in metalloenzymes.

With the postponement of the XXIX ICMRBS conference scheduled for August this year, Paul and Nick will present their Founders’ Medal lectures at the 2021 ICMRBS Conference in Boston in July 2021.  In the meantime, both Paul’s and Nick’s have shared their research with lectures in the Emerging Magnetic Resonance series, available via the ICMRBS YouTube site.

The ICMRBS Council thanks the selection committee for their contributions and warmly congratulates Paul and Nick on this significant award.