AOCS Protein and Co-Products Division
Newsletter February 2008

AOCS ANNUAL MEETING SPECIAL

AOCS 2008 Annual Meeting in Seattle May 18-21, Discounted Registration Available Through February 29

AOCS is planning an excellent 99th Annual Meeting and Expo, offering participants a full technical program and many networking events. Here are some key division events to take note of:

The current draft of the technical program is online. Updates and other conference information can be found at the official Annual Meeting webpage, including Hot Topic Symposia, short courses, and a complete schedule. Check back; the website will be continuously updated as new information becomes available.

Register by February 29 to receive a discount. Remember to sign up for the division reception and dinner when registering. Click here for registration information.

Dates to Remember

Please share this information with your colleagues. We look forward to seeing you in Seattle. Click here for the Seattle visitor's guide.

Keshun Liu.Message from the Chair, by Keshun Liu

Welcome to the new year of 2008! I am sure that you all just had a wonderful holiday season, are relaxed, and now are ready to spring into action to fulfill the New Year's resolutions you have just made.

Over the past several months, under the leadership of Mike Dowd, PCP vice chair, our technical session organizers and speakers have been busy completing their sessions and submitting necessary documents online for their talks. As a result, we now have an excellent technical program for the 2008 Annual Meeting (see the tentative program online for more information). We will have six oral sessions and one poster session. Also, in early October, PCP Division board members conducted a teleconference meeting, updating and discussing the old and new business regarding our division. One key topic was 2008 Annual Meeting planning.

Speaking about the annual meeting, it is only a few months away. The meeting is scheduled for May 18-21, 2008, at Washington State Convention & Trade Center, Seattle, WA. Our division will hold an annual dinner event at the Washington Athletic Club on Tuesday, May 20. The menu has been selected, and ticket prices are set at $55 early/$65 late. The student price will be $20 and the rest is subsidized by PCP Division. Dr. Ray Hilborn, Professor of Fisheries Management in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, has been invited to speak at the dinner event. He will talk about the current status and challenges of world fishery and the role of plant proteins in sustaining the industry. Also, to keep the tradition, for the 2008 Annual Meeting, we will run the PCP T-shirt drive. Through the effort of Phil Kerr, PCP secretary/treasurer, Solae Co. (St. Louis) has agreed to be the sponsor again. Solae Co. was the sponsor for PCP T-shirt drive during the 2006 Annual Meeting.

On the AOCS society level, last September division representatives met in Chicago. One of the key goals was to develop a set of division operating guidelines. For those who have recently visited the division website of AOCS, you may notice that all the past and most recent issues of the division newsletter are now available.

As we are approaching the Annual Meeting, we still have lots of things to do. January is a busy time. Speakers need to submit their abstracts and begin working on the content of their presentations or posters. We can now start to register and plan the trip for the meeting. Also, candidates for the ADM Best Paper Award will be selected from different AOCS publications this year. Some of you may be asked to serve on the Award Selection Committee. I hope that you will participate in the evaluation process.

2008 is also a year for PCP officer election. All positions but chairperson are open for nomination. So, I encourage each one of you to nominate someone you know well or even yourself for one of the positions. The bottom line is to get involved more with both our PCP Division and AOCS. You can provide your nomination to Mila Hojilla-Evangelista, our immediate past chair. Her email address is: Mila.HojillaEvangelista@ars.usda.gov.

Also, the AOCS Publications Committee continues to solicit ideas for book projects. Our Division has been approached to consider publishing books on any topic relating to proteins and co-products. I hope some of you will answer this call by providing an outline of your book idea.

As I close this message, I would like to use this opportunity to welcome new members, and to thank our dedicated members who are responsible for making PCP one of the most vigorous divisions within AOCS and for keeping it financially healthy. Special appreciation goes to those involved in session/program planning, ADM awards and other committees, the annual dinner, division T-shirts and this newsletter, to session speakers and authors; to our T-Shirt Sponsor, Solae Co.; and to readers like you.

Keshun Liu
President, Protein and Co-Products Division

Brief Bio of the Invited Speaker for Annual PCP Division Dinner and the Outline of the Speech

On Tuesday, May 20, PCP Division will hold an annual Dinner event at the Washington Athletic Club. The menu has been selected, and ticket prices are set at $55 early/$65 late. Student price will be $20. Dr. Ray Hilborn, Professor of Fisheries Management in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, has been invited to speak at the dinner event. Here are his brief bio and an outline of his talk.

Ray Hilborn is Richard C. and Lois M. Worthington Professor of Fisheries Management in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, specializing in natural resource management and conservation. He currently serves as an advisor to several international fisheries commissions and agencies as well as teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in conservation, fisheries stock assessment and risk analysis. He authored "Quantitative Fisheries Stock Assessment" with Carl Walters in 1992, and "The Ecological Detective: Confronting Models with Data" with Marc Mangel in 1997. Major areas of current and past research interest include Bayesian analysis of decision making in natural resources, adaptive management of renewable resources, the dynamics of the Serengeti ecosystem in east Africa, the role of hatcheries in management of Pacific salmon, the ability of institutions to learn from experience, statistical methods in testing dynamic ecological hypotheses, the analysis of migration and dispersal from mark-recapture data, and the ecological dynamics of fishing fleets. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada and received the Volvo Environmental Prize in 2006.

Outline of Dr. Hilborn's Dinner Speech:

1. World capture fisheries harvests have almost certainly peaked and will likely decline.

2. Aquaculture is growing rapidly and will almost certainly continue to do so and will surpass capture harvest in the foreseeable future.

3. A significant portion of aquaculture production has come from pisciverous fish (mostly salmon so far) and the market demand for aquaculture production of a range of fish such as cod, halibut, and dozens of other species now under culture is high.

4. The production potential for these species will be severely constrained by the lack of fish protein, which is the traditional form of feed. This is both an economic constraint and an ecological one as many NGOs are actively opposing expansion of aquaculture because of the ecological impact.

5. The solution to this problem is development of plant based feeds for these species. Therefore, oilseed proteins come to play.

Message from the PCP Division Secretary/Treasurer

As we progress toward the 2008 Annual Meeting in Seattle, we can reflect on 2007 as a time of significant change in our industry, with special interest on the part of the fats, oils and related co-products industry. Developing world economies, and the increasing use of oilseeds and grains for fuels as well as feed and food, are having a significant impact on many aspects of our food supply and utilization of co-products. There are significant increases in the world prices of soybeans as well as protein-containing food products from animal agriculture. These are putting considerable economic pressure on the world's ability to supply safe and nutritious food products to meet the dietary needs of the planet. Developing new ingredient technologies and commercial products from the co-products of these industries is crucial to the future success of these industries and their ability to positively affect our quality of life. While the challenges are daunting, the opportunities for our division's membership to be helpful in resolving these issues are equally great. As a result, the need for technical professionals within our industry who can help meet these challenges and solve this problem has never been greater. We encourage all PCP Division members to seek out those colleagues who are not AOCS PCP Division members that may have interests in our industry, and encourage them to join. The influx of new ideas and talent will help foster innovation needed in our industry to meet these challenges.

We encourage all members to actively participate in the upcoming annual meeting, including the technical program and the PCP Division dinner. As Keshun mentioned, we plan to emphasize challenges facing the aquaculture industry to meet the increasing demand for proteins and other feed ingredients necessary to support healthy growth and optimized production of key aquaculture species. In addition, a tour of a local NOAA aquaculture research institute is being considered and, if finalized, will be communicated in upcoming newsletters. Above and beyond the AOCS meeting, Seattle will offer our members excellent opportunities to experience one of the great U.S. cities, at a particularly good time of year. Members can get information about Seattle at a number of web sites. One that has been useful to me in anticipation of the meeting is http://www.visitseattle.org, Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau. I encourage you to take full advantage of the trip to the Emerald City and the Pacific Northwest.

Finally, as our division closed out 2007, our 25th year as one of AOCS's technical divisions, I am pleased to report that we are in sound financial condition with a positive balance of over $20,000. While we strive to keep a strong, positive financial balance for our division, we are open to suggestions from our members in 2008 on how to best use our funds to help advance our division's role in the industry. Feel free to contact me or the other PCP Division Board members with suggestions. I can be reached at pkerr@solae.com.

Best regards,
Phil Kerr
Secretary/Treasurer
AOCS, Protein and Co-Products Division

New Board Members
by Mila Hojilla-Evangelista

Our division board consists of a chairperson, a vice chairperson, secretary/treasurer, and three members-at-large. Member-at-large positions represent the interests of academia, government, and industry. All positions are two-year terms, and the terms of the current board members end this spring. New elections will therefore be held in the coming months.

It has been our tradition that the vice chairperson be the nominee-designate for the chairperson position and the secretary/treasurer for the vice chairperson position if s/he is willing to run for these offices.

All division members are welcome and encouraged to nominate additional individuals for any board position. Please send your nominations to me by March 1. In mid-March, division members will receive information from the AOCS on voting for the 2008-2010 Protein & Co-Products Division Board.

AOCS Offers Expanded Career Center

The AOCS career center delivers opportunities for advancement at any stage in your professional development.

AOCS and JobTarget have partnered to create a new full-service online career center. The career center focuses on assisting job seekers in the fats and oils industry and can be found on the AOCS website at http://www.aocs.org/member/jobcent.

AOCS knows how hard it is for employers to find top quality professionals, and for job seekers to find the right employer. Our career center connects member and non-member professionals in their search to find the optimal career fit.

The career center includes a Job Alert system that notifies you by email of new job opportunities that match your search criteria and an Anonymous Résumé Bank feature that enables you to list your experience and qualifications in a protected environment. The anonymous posting option allows you to stay connected to the employment market while maintaining full control of your confidential information. In return, employers have the option to pay only for the résumés that are appropriate for their job opportunity with the Pay-Per-Résumé feature.

For all your career needs and resources, visit us at http://www.aocs.org/member/jobcent.

Welcome New Members

The Protein & Co-Products Division would like to welcome new members:

Amit Arora, University of Illinois

Keith Bailey, Inland Empire Oilseeds LLC

Peter Bordi, Pennsylvania State University

Cindy Bower, USDA

Dan Comer, AFB International

Eric Craig, Carolina Soya LLC

E. Kyle Datta, US Biodiesel Group LLC

Rita Delrue, Cargill/Cerestar

Tanya Der, University of Saskatchewan

Abbas Hajizadeh, Behpak Ind Co

Isabel Hua, University of Saskatchwan

Ramneek Kaur

Mohamed Khan, Cevena Bioproducts Inc

Jens-Peter Krause, PlantPro

Eunice Li Chan, University of British Columbia

Eunice Li-Chan, University of British Columbia

Jack Losso, Louisiana State University

Harsha Marambe, University of Saskatchewan

Aris Martone, Bayer CropScience BioScience US

Christos Michas, LevCot SA

Zahid Mozaffar

Charles Onwulata, USDA ARS ERRC

George Piazza, USDA ARS ERRC

Phoebe Qi, USDA ARS ERRC

Kornsclee Ratanapariyanuch, University of Saskatchewan

Kristof Reiter, Reiter Scientific Consulting

Mark Rottmann, GE

Kenji Sato, Kyoto Prefectural University

Carlos Soza Barrundia, Inland Empire Oilseeds LLC

Chibuike Udenigwe, University of Manitoba

Alexis Udovenko Ilyichevsk, Oils & Fats Indus Complex

Hui Wang, Iowa State University

Karl Weingartner, University of Illinois

Rosie Weiss, Monsanto Co

Jianping Wu, University of Alberta