About BISMiS

The purpose of the society is to promote excellent research in microbial systematics as well as enhance global communication among taxonomists who study the Bacteria and Archaea. The society will also serve internationally as an advocate for research efforts on microbial systematics and diversity.

The Trust recognizes that the vast diversity of microbial life is the last remaining major reservoir of unknown biological diversity on Earth. A principal goal of the society is to comprehend this vast but largely unstudied diversity with its untapped genetic, enzymic and industrial potential. A basic aim of the society is to foster efforts to isolate novel microorganisms in pure culture and to describe, name and classify them.

Bergey's Manual Trust began considering the idea of an international society to support microbial systematics in 2006-2007. Through the Bergey's Manual Trust web site and Newsletter an online survey was conducted to determine if there was sufficient interest among the community of microbiologists who study the Bacteria and Archaea to form a Society. The results of the survey coupled with a discussion held at the 2008 International Union of Microbiological Societies meeting in Istanbul were highly supportive of the concept. Based on this, the Trust voted to sponsor BISMiS at its annual meeting in 2009.

Bergey's Manual Trust, which is an international Trust of microbial systematists, is an ideal organization to sponsor an international society because it is a non-profit trust [a USA 501(c)3 tax entity] that is devoted to serving the needs of the global community of microbial taxonomists interested in Bacteria and Archaea.

The current Executive Board comprises of:

President: Wen-Jun Li, Sun Yat-Sen University, China [liwenjun3@mail.sysu.edu.cn]
Biosketch: Wen-Jun Li obtained his PhD degree from Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2002. He started in 1996 at Yunnan University at Kunming and later-on moved to the School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University at Guangzhou in 2014, where he is currently working as Distinguished Professor. He has published six monographs, 30 patents and over 840 peer reviewed papers. He is the Associate Editor for IJSEM, ANTO, Frontiers in Microbiology & BioMed Research International, and serves on the Editorial Board of mLife, Journal of Arid Land, Acta Microbiologica Sinica and Chinese Journal of Microbiology. He was awarded the WFCC Skerman Award for Microbial Taxonomy in 2007 and has received Provincial Level Awards six times since 2005 for his outstanding research contributions in the field of Microbial Systematics. He is a 'Committee Member' of the ICSP on the suborder Micrococcales since 2008 and a ‘Charter Member’ of BISMiS since 2011. He was also appointed as a member of the Executive Board (EB, 2017-2020) of ICSP during its meeting at Valencia, Spain, and served as Secretary of BISMiS from April 2018 till Nov 2023.
Read More



President-elect: Stephanus N. Venter, University of Pretoria, South Africa [fanus.venter@up.ac.za]
Biosketch: Stephanus (Fanus) Venter is particularly interested in bacterial evolution, systematics, and diversity. His research group focuses on two main areas, plant-associated bacteria (rhizobia) and salterns. Fanus was recently appointed as Senior Editor for ISME Communications. He is also the President-elect of BISMiS, Board Member of the Bergey’s Manual Trust and Secretary of the Executive Board of the SeqCode Committee.
Read More



Secretary: Wee Fei Aaron Teo, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia [teoweefeiaaron.bismis@gmail.com]
Biosketch: Dr. Wee Fei Aaron Teo is a microbiologist specializing in prokaryotic taxonomy, systematics, and microbial genomics. He earned his PhD in Microbiology from Kasetsart University, Thailand, and is currently a researcher at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. His work focuses on actinobacteria taxonomy, genome-based phylogeny, and applications in environmental and agricultural microbiology, with active contributions to advancing prokaryotic taxonomy. Dr. Aaron serves as Secretary of the Bergey’s International Society for Microbial Systematics (2023–2027) and as Executive Editor of Current Microbiology. He is also a member of the Editorial Boards of BMC Microbiology and the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
Read More



Treasurer: William Whitman, University of Georgia, USA [whitman@uga.edu]
Biosketch: William ‘Barny’ Whitman received his PhD in microbiology from The University of Texas in Austin in the laboratory of F. Robert Tabita. His training was completed at the University of Illinois in Urbana in the laboratory of Ralph S. Wolfe. When he started his own laboratory at the University of Georgia in 1982, he initially focused on developing genetic systems in the methanogenic archaeon Methanococcus as well the pathway of autotrophic CO2 assimilation. Since then, his research has focused on the physiology, systematics and ecology of environmentally important microorganisms. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Georgia where systematics has been a central part of his work. His laboratory developed one of the most popular methods for determination of the mol % G+C [Mesbah et al. 1989. Int J Sys Bacteriol 39:159-167] and helped describe more than twenty new species. From 1986-2001, he was Secretary of the International Committee on Systematics of Bacteria (ICSB) Subcommittee on the Taxonomy of Methanogenic Bacteria and coauthored its first Minimal Standards [Boone and Whitman. 1988. Int J Syst Bacteriol. 38: 212-219]. From 1995-2001, he was an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology, and in 2000 received the Bergey’s Award from the Bergey’s Manual Trust. In 2006, he joined the Bergey’s Manual Trust and became the Supervising Editor of the Manual, a post in which he still serves. His work as an editor of Bergey’s Manual on the Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria has strongly informed his opinions on prokaryotic systematics. From 2014-2020, he served as Treasurer and member of the Executive Board of the ICSP. Since 2022, he served on the Executive Board of the Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes Described from Sequence Data (SeqCode) Committee. He has also been the Treasurer of Bergey’s International Society for Microbial Systematics (BISMiS) since its founding, which is strange being that he is not very political.
Read More



Chair of Bergey’s Manual Trust: Martha Trujillo, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain [mett@usal.es]
Biosketch: Being prepared
Read More



Member at-large: Elena Ivanova, RMIT University, Australia [elena.ivanova@rmit.edu.au]
Biosketch: Elena P. Ivanova received PhD from the Institute of Microbiology and Virology, Ukraine; ScD from the Pacific Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry, Russian Federation; JD from The University of Melbourne, Australia. She is currently working as Distinguished Professor at RMIT University, Australia. Her research crosses over taxonomy, systematics and phylogeny of marine prokaryotes. She described 32 novel bacterial species, 4 genera and 7 families of marine prokaryotes, some with valuable biotechnological properties (producers of highly active alkaline phosphatases, restriction enzymes, endonucleases; biologically active compounds such as antifungal compound isatin; unique classes of cyclic depsipeptides and surface-active lipopeptides). She was co-founder of Collection of Marine Micro-organisms (KMM), Russian Federation; and had dedicated over 20 years research linking Microbiology to Nanobiotechnology. Her team discovered that surfaces possessing particular nanoscale physical structures, which mimic the surface of insect wings can be lethal to bacteria (N. Comm, 2013). She served as Section editor for Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and for FACETS Canadian Scientific Publisher; Subject editor for Scientific Reports; Associate editor for Microbes & Environments. She is the recipient of AIST and JSPS Fellowships (Japan), UNESCO Biotechnology Fellowship, Research Excellence Award from the Governor of Primorye and the Prominent Young Doctor of Science Award (Russian Federation); the Morrison Rogosa Award from the American Society for Microbiology (USA), UNSW Eureka Prize for Scientific Research (Australia).
Read More



Member at-large: Iftikhar Ahmed, National Culture Collection of Pakistan [iftikhar.ahmed@parc.gov.pk]
Biosketch: Being prepared
Read More



Member at-large: Lorena Carro, University of Salamanca, Spain [lcg@usal.es]
Biosketch: Being prepared
Read More



Service Member (Coordinator, BISMiS Live): Kamlesh Jangid, Agharkar Research Institute, India [jangidk@aripune.org]
Biosketch: Kamlesh Jangid is Scientist E and Head of the Bioenergy Division at the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, and In-charge of the MACS Collection of Microorganisms (MCM), a premier national repository of anaerobes and extremophiles. A microbial ecologist and systematist by training, his work bridges classical microbiology, genome-informed taxonomy, and environmental microbial ecology through integrative approaches that combine cultivation, molecular systematics, and metagenomics. His research has significantly advanced understanding of soil and environmental microbiomes, particularly their roles in ecosystem development, stress resilience, and sustainable bioresource utilization. He previously contributed to building the National Centre for Microbial Resource (NCMR) at NCCS and continues to champion culture collections as critical infrastructure for microbial systematics and bioeconomy.
A charter member of BISMiS, Dr. Jangid has served the society as Secretary (2014–2018), President-Elect (2018–2020), President (2021–2023), and currently as a member of the Executive Board. His presidency was marked by expanded global engagement, capacity-building initiatives, and the conceptualization of BISMiS Live, a flagship digital platform that connects microbial systematists worldwide and supports early-career researchers through mentoring and training. He is a Full Member of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) and Chair of the IUMS Committee of the Microbiologists Society, India, and serves on the editorial boards of leading international journals. Through his scientific leadership and community outreach, he continues to promote an inclusive, data-driven, and globally connected future for microbial taxonomy and systematics.
Read More



Service Member (Representing BISMiS at ICSP): Luis Ángel Maldonado Manjarrez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico [lamaldo@quimica.unam.mx]
Biosketch: Being prepared
Read More

Our Past Presidents:

• James Staley, 2009 - May 2011
• Michael Goodfellow (resigned in favor of Fred Rainey), May 2011
• Fred Rainey, Jun 2011 - Apr 2014
• Brian Austin, May 2014 - Sep 2016
• Martha Trujillo, Oct 2016 - Apr 2018
• Iain Sutcliffe, May 2018 - Jul 2020
• Kamlesh Jangid, Aug 2020 - Nov 2023

The Society would be pleased to accept donations in support of its activities. Any such donations would be tax-deductible for US taxpayers as BISMiS is part of a non-profit trust [USA 501(c)3 tax entity].

The meetings of BISMiS are held every two years and started in 2011 with its inagural meeting in Beijing, China, on 19-23 May 2011. See the BISMiS Meetings page for more details.

Members have access to The Microbial Taxonomist, the newsletter of Bergey's Manual Trust, and a new publication, The Bulletin of BISMiS. The Bulletin is sent to members immediately upon publication. It is then released for open access 6 months following publication. The Bulletin of BISMiS focuses on invited opinion articles, review articles, educational articles on methodologies, and invited autobiographies and biographies. Original research articles will not be published.

The original constitution was approved on 18 March 2011, by a vote of the membership of 77% in favor, 0% against, and 23% not voting. Very recently, the membership adopted amendments to the constitution of BISMiS and its new Bylaws with a 100% in favor vote. The latest constitution and bylawys are effective from May 1st, 2023 and available online here and here, respectively.

One goal of the Society is to provide appropriate recognition to those who have made significant contributions to microbial systematics. The major reason for this is to acknowledge the importance of the recipient's contributions and to aid in their careers. In addition, this group of well-known systematists can serve as a powerful international voice in promoting the field of microbial systematics.