This year the ISM (International Society for Mycotoxicology) conference was held from 9 – 11 September 2009 in Tulln, Austria. More than 450 participants from all over the world attended this global discussion forum on the worldwide mycotoxin reduction in food and feed chains. The sessions were generally divided into the following topics: pre-harvest mycotoxins reduction, post-harvest mycotoxins reduction, bioavailability and detoxification of mycotoxins and advanced technologies to reduce and detect toxigenic fungi and mycotoxins. More than 60 talks and over 240 posters were presented at the ISM. Besides the scientific presentations, round table discussions about the four different session topics took place. All poster abstracts and the summaries of the round table discussions are available on the website.

From the BIOMIN side 2 presentations were given at this conference. Gerd Schatzmayr (Director R&D, BIOMIN Research Center) talked about the “Detoxification of mycotoxins by means of biodegradation and biotransformation). The topic “Biodegradation of fumonisins” was presented by Dieter Moll (Project leader mycotoxins research, BIOMIN Research Center). Moreover BIOMIN employees contributed as author or co-author in more than 10 posters.

Besides the scientific program, a gala dinner was organized in the garden show in Tulln and people could listen to a traditional band and admired the water show. Fireworks were the closing of this successful evening.

The next ISM conference will take place in Penang, Malaysia (beginning of December 2010). Further ISM conferences are planned for South Africa (2011) and USA (2012).