Mission & History

Mission Statement

Skeletal muscle is required for movement, breathing, and general good health. Loss of muscle in old age is debilitating and muscle diseases are often lethal. The Society for Muscle Biology aims to further the study of muscle development, physiology, disease, regeneration, and therapy. As a forum for muscle biology scientists at all levels, it supports scientific interaction, training and mentoring, and outreach to the general public and policy makers.

The Society for Muscle Biology:

  • Sponsors an annual conference
  • Promotes awards for scientists across career stages
  • Offers mentorship to young scientists and investigators entering the field
  • Fosters gatherings of interest groups within the field
  • Provides a repository for standardized techniques
  • Advocates for muscle biology research to drive sustained growth of the field
  • Promotes inclusive, ethical, and equitable practices in all activities within the international muscle biology community

A Brief History of the Society for Muscle Biology

In 1991, Keystone Symposia held a conference on “Molecular Biology of Muscle Development”; this meeting was held again in 1994 and 1997. By 1997, the myogenesis community felt that this conference did not provide sufficient opportunity for collegial interaction and was too expensive. Leaders in the field therefore acted to form the Society for Muscle Biology (SMB) as a way for the community to run its own conference. SMB was thereby founded and incorporated, and it held the first “Frontiers in Myogenesis” conference in 2000 at Asilomar, CA. The Frontiers conference is still active, occurring every two years under the auspices of SMB. For many years, SMB received assistance in running the conference from the Society for Developmental Biology (a member of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) but it now functions autonomously.

In 1998, the first meeting on “Adult Myogenesis and Satellite Cells” was held by members of the field. The meeting was successful, and FASEB agreed to offer it as a conference under their banner, beginning in 2001. FASEB continued to run this conference through 2022, at which point the myogenesis community felt it was ready to move away from FASEB. The elected organizers of the 2024 conference therefore held the conference under the auspices of SMB, at Estérel, Canada.

SMB therefore now organizes a major conference every year, “Frontiers in Myogenesis” in odd-numbered years and “Muscle Stem Cells” in even-numbered years. By running these conferences, SMB has made important contributions to bringing the muscle biology community together. We now hope to advance SMB to the next step as a society that will continue to aid development of muscle biology and represent those working in the field.