History of HSBMB

The Greek Biochemistry Society was founded in 1959 in Thessaloniki after an initiative of A. Christomanos (professor of the Medical Dept., Univ. of Thessaloniki) and his colleague I. G. Georgatsou. The two of them were at the time the only biochemists in Thessaloniki. The remaining members of the Society were local Thessaloniki doctors. The Society, and due to the lack of interest, remained inactive until it merged in 1983 with the Greek Biochemical and Biophysics Society (GBBS). The latter was founded in Athens in 1971 from 23 scientists that were involved in biochemical and biophysical research. All of its members were based in Athens, with the exception of two researchers from the Theagenio Anticancer Institute of Thessaloniki and a researcher from the University of Patras.

The Society is guided by a 7-member administrative board which is elected every two years. The requirements to becoming a member was (and still remains) to have a Ph.D. in biochemistry, biophysics or molecular chemistry, or at least three publications in international peer-reviewed magazines on the same subjects. This requirement has been assuring the scientific quality of the Society and its members.

The main goal of the society has been the seminar organization. The first year the society was funded, and more precisely on 18 December 1971, the first scientific conference was held at the lecture hall of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) with eight 20-minute oral announcements. Since then, and until today, an extended summary of the members' announcements have been published in the society's newsletter.

In 1983 the charter of the society was changed, mainly in order to accomodate the creation of the society's branch offices outside of Athens. In addition to that, the election proccess of the board changed, so that only five out of the seven members would be elected with the remaining two seats going to the previous Chairman and Secretary General.

Through GBBS, the Greek biochemists were represented in international organizations such as the IUB (later changed to IUBMB), IUPAB and FEBS. The scientific conferences of the society were held, for a many years, twice a year; once in Athens and the second in another Greek city. Since 1999 however, when the society was renamed to Hellenic Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (HSBMB) the conferences were held annually, again rotating between one conference in Athens and one conference in another Greek city where the society has a branch. With the initiative of HSBMB, Balkanic conferences on Biochemistry and Biophysics have been organized for the last 20 years. The society also held a succesfull FEBS session in 1982 in Athens.

Those first 8 announcements in 1971 have evolved into 70 announcements during the 52nd HSBMB conference that was held in Thessaloniki in 2000. In the 30 years since the 23 first pioneers founded today's HSBMB, the society has more than 500 members in Greece and abroad. The society has elected a number of pioneer scientists as its distinguished members, such as Francis Crick and Arthur Kornberg.