We received numerous kudos from those who participated in our day long seminar concerning the metal-working fluids industry back in November.  It provided a forum for both presentations and for one on one discussions during breaks. We became so busy during the holiday season, we neglected to get our newsletter published.  Now we have more information than would be reasonable for one newsletter.  So rather than monthly, we anticipate sending out two or three during February.  Since the seminar, we have certainly seen an uptick in the numbers of requests for Mycobacteria qPCR assays.  Jim O'Donnell and Bruce Hemming are making some interesting further developments in the Mycobacteria arena. Our next seminar is tentatively scheduled for Friday, May 18th and will be a workshop on Food Defense to include Food Defense Awareness, Vulnerability Assessments, FDA Actions on Bioterrorism Legislation as it applies to the Food Supply, Food Recalls, and New Technologies in this area.  We found the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to be a wonderful venue and have scheduled the date with them again.  We are now soliciting Sponsors to help us bring in World Class speakers on this subject.  Our backpacks given out at the last seminar were quite a hit and so we expect to put Sponsor names again on them for distribution to attendees.