SBIC NewsOn this page you will find the latest news from SBIC. We encourage you to sign up for the quarterly SBIC newsletter to stay up to date with the latest developments in the biological inorganic chemistry community. If you are an SBIC member or have an account on the page and would like to receive the newsletter, click here to opt-in. If you are not a member, but would like to receive the newsletter, please click here to register and sign up. To view past newsletters, click here.  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. Announcing the 2026 SBIC Early Career Awardee, Hannah Shafaat We are very happy to announce that the 2026 SBIC Early Career Awardee is Hannah Shafaat of University of California, Los Angeles.
Hannah’s research program has centered on two major research thrusts: 1) The development of protein-based models of nickel metalloenzymes, and 2) The metalloenzymology of heterobimetallic oxidases. A particular strength of the Shafaat program is the integration of protein redesign with advanced spectroscopic techniques to connect structure, function, and dynamics, revealing unique electronic structure properties that drive reactivity. Her work has applications in catalyst design for sustainable energy conversion reactions and understanding the biochemistry of the origins of life. Hannah’s work has previously been recognized by a number of awards, including a Sloan Fellowship and the Ed Stiefel Lectureship at the Metals in Biology Gordon Conference. Look for Prof. Shafaat’s award address at the 2027 ICBIC in York! Warm congratulations, Hannah! 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!
Chuan He (University of Chicago): Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2026 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.
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! SBIC Early Career Researcher Committee Update Committee Membership Update The SBIC ECR Committee wishes to acknowledge Dr Marian Hebenbrock who is stepping down from the Committee. Marian served as our inaugural secretary and we are enormously grateful to him for his expert support in this role. We are pleased to announce that our new SBIC ECR Committee secretary is Dr Sina Katharina Goetzfried, Senior Postdoc and Group Leader, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. We also welcome a new committee member, Associate Professor Runming Wang from Tsinghua University, China as our Asia representative. EuroBIC18 Conference, Groningen, The Netherlands Building on the success of the inaugural SBIC ECR symposium held at ICBIC21 in 2025, the SBIC ECR Committee organised two dedicated events during the 18th European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Conference (EuroBIC18), in collaboration with the EuroBIC18 Organising Committee and with the support of the SBIC Council. The first event was a dedicated symposium featuring nine oral presentations from ECRs selected from abstracts submitted to EuroBIC18. The symposium also included a presentation from the Royal Society of Chemistry on best publishing practices including the ethical use of AI. The symposium highlighted the breadth of research in biological inorganic chemistry and provided selected presenters with the opportunity for ECRs to showcase their work to an international audience. It also continues to demonstrate the value of dedicated speaking opportunities for emerging researchers and further strengthens the visibility of the next generation of scientists within the SBIC community. Following the symposium, the SBIC ECR Committee hosted a networking and professional development dinner for 35 ECRs. The evening featured informal networking and discussion, allowing participants to engage directly with experts from academia, publishing, and industry. We are grateful to Martin Donker and Clemens Fraikin from JASCO who provided practical advice on establishing a research laboratory and transitioning towards research independence and to Emily Cuffin-Munday from the RSC who provided advice on publishing, including the use of AI, and research engagement with ECRs. The symposium and networking evening attracted enthusiastic participation from ECRs attending EuroBIC18. Feedback received during and after the events highlighted the value of combining scientific presentations with dedicated professional development activities and networking opportunities. ‘As a final-year PhD student, it was amazing to participate in some oral presentations and see my colleagues on the same stage, showcasing their work in the field. I also attended the dinner, which was absolutely amazing. Being able to discuss future career steps with sponsors and researchers in different positions really helped me to consider all the possibilities for my future in this field. Thank you, it was amazing!’, Maria Firmino(Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier (ITQB NOVA), Portugal ‘As a PhD student, participating in my very first EuroBIC and being selected for an oral presentation at the SBIC ECR Session was an immense joy and an invaluable milestone. It was a true honor to present the results of my work and to see my name on the same timetable alongside researchers I deeply admire. The conference provided an exceptional platform to share my findings and stay up to date with advances in bioinorganic chemistry. Beyond the scientific sessions, the ECR social dinner was a major highlight; sitting and connecting with fellow researchers opened up fantastic discussions where I learned a great deal. The entire experience was immensely beneficial for expanding my network and discovering new perspectives in such a welcoming community.’ Gustavo Clauss (University of Campinas, Brazil) The SBIC ECR Committee gratefully acknowledges the support of SBIC Council, the EuroBIC18 Organising Committee, particularly Prof Gerard Roelfes, Prof Sylvestre Bonnet, Prof Wesley Browne and Dr Sina Goetzfried, for their enthusiasm, collaboration, and support in incorporating these activities into the conference programme; JASCO, particularly Martin Donker and Clemens Fraikin, for delivering an engaging career development seminar and supporting the networking evening; the Royal Society of Chemistry, particularly Emily Cuffin-Munday, for delivering an excellent publishing workshop focused on scientific communication, publishing and the ethical use of AI. A special thank you to CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, particularly Hilary LaFoe (Senior Editor) and Adam Mlodzinski (Editorial Assistant), for their continued support of SBIC ECR activities through sponsorship of the Metal Ions in Life Sciences Series Books which were presented to all speakers of the ECR Symposium and 5 poster prize winners. We also acknowledge and thank all speakers, attendees, sponsors, and volunteers whose contributions made these events possible.
Please contact us if you are running a conference, symposium, or workshop to include in future Newsletters and on the SBIC website calendar. 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 invite recommendations and submissions. If you are an SBIC member, you also have access to members-only content which is continuously growing. Follow this link! 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. 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. Please consult our website for further information about conference support: https://www.sbichem.org/conferences-2 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. Reminder: 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. 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 apologize 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. 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. |
Hannah earned her B.S. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2006, where she performed research on spectroscopic endospore viability assays with 
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