Several of us recently attended the annual EPSCoR/IDeA Coalition meeting in Washington, D.C. In addition to having the opportunity to visit the offices of the entire Maine delegation to discuss the FY2009 appropriations for EPSCoR and IDeA, we also heard a presentation from Daniel Atkins, the Director of the National Science Foundation Office of Cyber Infrastructure.

Dr. Atkins gave a very important briefing on the vision that his office has for the role of cyberinfrastructure in the future of research and research organizations. I commend to you the Office's website, www.nsf.gov/oci, and in particular two reports which describe this vision. One is called Report of the Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure and the other is called Cyberinfrastructure Vision for the 21^st Century. Both would appear to be required reading for anyone thinking about how information technology can and will transform the collaborative process as we know it.

We look forward to working with you all to think about how Maine can participate in this new era.

Upcoming events of note:

Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium, April 25-26, 2008. www.mdibl.org.courses/mbmss08.shtml