CALL FOR VOTES: FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS/bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent

[BIOSCI Administrator]

Voting is now open on the following proposal to create the mailing
list & newsgroup

FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS/bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent

The charter was not modified as a result of the discussion.

*** NOTE *** We are often running several votes for other newsgroups,
so please be certain to follow the voting directions *carefully*!  If
you just send in a message saying "YES" or "NO" it will not be counted
if it is not clear which proposal you are responding to.

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Proposal to establish:
FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS/bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent

Proposed USENET name:         bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent

Proposed mailing list name:   FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS
 
Proposed e-mail addresses:    fluorpro at net.bio.net
                              fluorpro at daresbury.ac.uk

Discussion Leaders:
Paul Kitts              e-mail: paulki at clontech.com
Steve Kain              e-mail: stevek at clontech.com
  
  
Bioluminescence, the production of visible light by living
organisms, is a fascinating biological phenomenon. In addition,
bioluminescent organisms have provided biologists with several
powerful research tools: Luciferases which are used as highly
sensitive quantitative reporter genes, Aequorin which is used to
report on intracellular levels of Ca++ ions, the pycobiliproteins,
and most recently Green fluorescent protein (GFP) which is a 
novel reporter that can be used to monitor gene expression and 
protein localization inside living cells and organisms. 

This newsgroup is intended to provide a forum for discussion of
bioluminescence, to promote further development of reporter
proteins obtained from bioluminescent organisms, and to
facilitate their application to interesting biological
questions.

We anticipate that the participants in this newsgroup will be:
- scientists studying the biology and biochemistry of 
  bioluminescence.
- scientists developing new or improved fluorescent proteins,
  luciferases or aequorin-like proteins.
- scientists using these reporter proteins in their research.
- scientists developing instruments for the imaging or 
  quantitation of the light emitted by these reporters.

The newsgroup is intended to provide :
- a forum for the discussion of ideas, problems and recent 
  developments concerning light emitting reporter proteins.
- a place for sharing unpublished results, both successes and 
  failures.
- a source of help on methodological and technical problems.
- opportunities for collaborative efforts between labs.
 
The newsgroup will run unmoderated but we are willing to act as
coordinators.

Paul Kitts & Steve Kain
CLONTECH Laboratories
Palo Alto, California.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Voting is now open on the proposal for
FLUORESCENT-PROTEINS/bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent and will run
through 24:00 hrs Pacific Time on 2 May 1995.  Please send your
vote to either of the following addresses:

Address                               Location        Network
-------                               --------        -------
biovote at daresbury.ac.uk               U.K.            JANET
biovote at net.bio.net                   U.S.A.          Internet/BITNET

PLEASE BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FORMAT BELOW - WE OFTEN RUN MORE THAN ONE
VOTE AT A TIME SO A SIMPLE "YES" OR "NO" MESSAGE WITHOUT THE NEWSGROUP
NAME MAY BE AMBIGUOUS.  Your vote should contain a single line:

YES on FLUORPRO

if you favor allowing the creation of this newsgroup or

NO on FLUORPRO

if you think that this proposal will adversely affect the
BIOSCI/bionet system.  While not intended to be an exhaustive list of
possible concerns (more specific concerns may have been raised during
the discussion period on BIOFORUM/bionet.general and interested
readers are referred to these), some general reasons for voting NO
might be if you are concerned about newsgroup proliferation and/or
believe that the proposed group will not be utilized, or if you think
that the proposed newsgroup would substantially duplicate or overlap
with the function of existing newsgroups.  If you are simply not
interested in participating in the newsgroup above, please don't cast
a NO vote, but instead just don't vote at all.

The newsgroup proposal must receive at least 80 YES votes to pass and
the number of YES votes must be greater than the number of NO votes by
at least 40.  Discussion of the newsgroup proposal is now closed and
we strongly discourage posting any messages in other forums about the
fact that a CALL FOR VOTES has been issued.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				BIOSCI/bionet Manager

				biosci-help at net.bio.net