International Society for Biological Calorimetry (ISBC)

In 1783, Lavoisier was the first to construct an ice calorimeter and to measure animal heat production as well as respiration and came to the crucial conclusion:

^{^{"La respiration est donc une combustion, à la vérité fort lente" (Respiration is thus a combustion, a slow one to be precise)

Brief History of the ISBC:

At
the instigation principally of Tony Beezer (Chelsea College, London
University) and Bob Taylor (LKB Ltd, UK), a group of us met for an
afternoon conference at the Chemistry Department of the former to
discuss problems in and applications of heat conduction calorimetry in
biology. Such was its success that it was decided to hold another
meeting hosted by Tony the next year and open it to international
participation. The search for a title with a convenient acronym
resulted in the International Symposia on Microcalorimetric Applications in Biology (ISMAB). With
the aid of the Swedish calorimeter manufacturer LKB, the 1974 meeting
introduced such foreign stalwarts as Lee Hansen and Giovanni Rialdi and
was so successful that not all of us could attend the conference dinner
and regretfully had to go to the Trattoria Mama Rosa in Notting Hill
instead! As an off-shoot, in the ’70s Peter Fletcher and I edited the Microcalorimetry Research Report.

With
continued interest and support by LKB Produkter AB in Sweden through
Bob, ISMAB thrived mainly with London meetings hosted mostly by Tony
but also by Arthur James, though there was one excursion to sunny
Aberystwyth in 1980. The takeover of LKB and the emergence of
Thermometric AB stimulated thoughts that the time was right to cross
the English Channel and we welcomed the proposal by Erich Gnaiger to
hold the VIth ISMAB in the delightful ski resort of Schröcken in
Vorarlberg, Austria as a satellite symposium to the 10th ESCPB
Conference in Innsbruck.

Our return to London in April 1990
coincided with the 60th birthday of the renown calorimeter designer and
far-sighted protagonist of the value of the instrument for analytical
applications in Biology, Ingemar Wadsö. The ISBC Committee decided to
mark this anniversary by creating a titled lecture and who better than
Lavoisier for the name of it! Ms Swan Go (Elsevier), who was to become
an ever-friendly supporter of the Society, kindly agreed to an issue of
Thermochimica Acta becoming the conference Proceedings and acting as
the festschrift for Ingemar. Astonishingly, it was published 9 months
after the meeting. It was not until 1993, however, that the Secretary
secured sufficient funds to mint the Medal that was given
retrospectively to the first holders.

After the 1990 meeting the
Committee felt it was appropriate for ISMAB to metamorphose to ISBC,
even though the initials did not have a ring to it. In respect for the
heritage of ISMAB, it was decided to preserve the original numbering.
In the 1990s the occasional Dubrunfaut Award was instituted for
non-calorimetrists who have made a great contribution to bio thermal
studies. Publication of the Proceedings has become the norm, with two
more of them being festschrifts, for Ingolf Lamprecht (1995) and
Richard Kemp (2002).}}