| I am indeed sorry to learn this situation. I have always felt that your organization provided a very valuable service to the biotech industry. And I enjoyed getting to know you and your daughter better. Please give my best to all at Wilbio. |
| I am sorry to hear that WilBio will be closed. The WilBio conferences that I have attended have been very appreciated regarding both scientific content and organization. |
| I am so saddened by this announcement. Your group has been so wonderful to be a part of. And I loved giving a talk with you. Our company also is making it difficult to go to conferences at our level. I looked forward to meeting with my peers once yearly over the last years. Take care and I look forward to keeping in touch. |
| I'm sorry to hear that you were affected so deeply and so quickly by the economic malaise that there was no alternative but to shut down. You provided a marvelous service to the industry over the years. I have many fine memories of both the conferences themselves, and of times spent at various places around the country. I hope all of you quickly find alternative employment worthy of you. |
| I am very sorry to hear about WilBio’s farewell. We have very much enjoyed the opportunity to attend your conferences over the years. We always found them to be very beneficial and productive. Wishing you all the best. |
| I just want to write to say I was sorry to hear the news that Wilbio has closed for business. This is sad news. I greatly enjoyed the two conferences I attended and spoke at. I was grateful for the opportunity to speak and help chair at these events. WIlBio provided a great forum for scientific discussion and I enjoyed our conversations—you have a great passion for the field we work in. |
| I am devastated that WilBio is closing. Although I understand the economic situation, it is still a blow to see someone like yourself and WilBio being shut down. It has been a great ride for you and hopefully, the day will come when WilBio can be another 'Phoenix' and arise from the ashes. |
| I am so sorry to hear about WilBio. I hope that times will change soon and WilBio will arise. I have thoroughly enjoyed all the WilBio conferences that I have attended - Williamsburg once and the Singapore conference twice. I treasure the great science conversations, the excellent food (the Peranakan food at the restaurant in Singapore), and the warm collegiality of all the attendees. Also, my wife and two daughters had tagged along with me to the conferences and enjoyed touring Williamsburg and Singapore. |
| This is a very sad news. As far as I am concerned it is the end of an era. |
| I just saw your website notice. I am truly sad to see such a valuable resource lost. Best wishes to you and all the team. |
| I am very sorry to hear your news. I have enjoyed my interactions with all your staff many times over the 15 years of WilBio. Good luck and if there is ever anything I can do to help you or your colleagues you know where to find me. |
| Just a short note to say that I am very sorry to hear that WilBio has fallen victim to the economic crunch. While I only attended one WilBio conference, it was the most pleasurable meeting of my career, and it made me look forward to attending more in the future. Many thanks to you and your team for providing such a great environment for nurturing the scientific development of many great ideas and technologies. |
| I am very sorry to hear about WilBio. I have enjoyed the excellent conferences I have attended in the past and the industry will certainly be worse off for the loss. My best wishes to you and everyone there. |
| I was shocked and saddened to hear this news. As a former two-time speaker at your conferences, WilBio held a special place in my heart and career. Although my career path has moved me away from direct involvement in the biotech arena in the past several years, I have had a hope to one day return to the field—if I do it will certainly not be the same without your organization. I wish the best for you all in the days ahead. |
| I am so sorry to hear that you are shutting down. It really saddens me. Your meetings were a perfect blend of professionalism and friendly atmosphere. I learned a lot and made such good contacts during the Baculovirus meetings, I owe you so much. I hope you will restore this remarkable operation soon! |
| I was sorry to hear about Wilbio closing its doors. It’s not news to you, but the conference economy is suffering across the board—we have seen it here too, with meetings that normally draw 100, now struggling to attract 50. The only plus side is that hotels are desperate for business, and cutting room rates. Maybe we will see a recovery soon. Maybe. Please stay in touch, and best wishes to you. |
| It is a pity to hear that the WilBio is going out of business. Having only had once the opportunity to enroll in a meeting, I am sure that the open and encouraging atmosphere will be missed in the future. I wish you and your (former) colleagues success in future activities. |
| I'm so sorry these economic times have resulted in such a devastating end to this wonderful endeavor. I wish you and all the staff the best. They are all super professionals and will be an asset wherever they land. |
| This breaks my heart. Even though I understand the economic conditions, it is a blow to lose WilBio. |
| I was so shocked to hear the news. I’d like to thank you for coordinating such a wonderful program and helping product development scientists throughout the years. I’d like wish you the best in your future endeavors and please find some way to keep in touch. |
| When you have updates of the next chapter in the lives of the people that were WilBio, their friends in the bioprocessing industry would surely be interested in knowing. |
| This is sad news and I am truly sorry to hear of the closure of WilBio. I’ll miss seeing all of you and participating in the wonderfully informative and inclusive conferences you were able to organize so effectively. We all need the attributes of the phoenix these days so that we can rise out of the ashes of what has gone before and create something new and vibrant to match these challenging times! Best of luck and many thanks for all you have provided over the last 15 years! |
| I am so sorry to hear about WilBio closing down. I always thought it had excellent opportunities for folks and it will be a great loss to the industry. I send you best wishes and good luck in whatever you do in the future. |
| I am so sorry to hear this news. I always enjoyed the conferences so much, both the Monoclonal Antibody one in the early years and the Viral Vector ones. You provided an unmet need in the industry and I am very sorry that the economy has forced this decision. Best of luck to you all in the future. |
| Sorry to hear of WilBio's passing. I attended several of the Raw Material conferences you had in the Long Beach area and thought them to be quite valuable. Hope you will be able to come up with something else to replace it when the economy improves. |
| We are very sorry for you, your team, and the good work you have done. Thank you very much for the good times and everything else, and even more important best luck for the future. |
| Sad to learn that WilBio will no more invite us to share the information and challenge of the biotech industry. I was invited in San Antonio to present my contribution to the Baculovirus performances in the Veterinary vaccines field. Many thanks to the Foundation and its contributors and actors. |
| I was saddened to read about the demise of the WilBio Foundation. Your Baculovirus and Insect Cell conferences were the best I have been to and I made many friends at this conference over the years. Personally, I give the annual WilBio Baculovirus/Cell conferences much credit for creating the outstanding interface between academia, research institutes, and commercial companies. It was a wonderful example of the transfer of biotechnological advances to the marketplace ...for the public good. Thank you WilBio! Wishing all of you all the best and I hope our paths will cross some day. |
| Very sorry to hear this. You and your group put on good meetings that were informative and enjoyable to attend. Best of luck to you in finding a new avenue for your energy and creativity. |
| I am very sorry to hear your news. From one who has been through the death of an organization I know that it is like losing a member of the family. WilBio has provided a valuable service to us in the service industry and you will be missed. Many of the connections that became our long-term customers were made at your meetings. Not having the Baculovirus conference to look forward to will be hard. It had the best atmosphere of any meeting that I have ever been too. There are many good memories of meetings that you have organized. I appreciate all of your efforts over the years and the opportunities that you provided for me and my companies. Time heals all wounds and there are always doors waiting to be opened. |
| So sorry to hear this news. Also feel bad for not being able to register for one of your events this year due to financial issues. I wish all of you the best of luck in your future endeavors!! Perhaps one day everything will be back to normal track, perhaps. |
| I am sorry to hear about your organization shutting down. I hope to see you re-surface in the near future...I believe your programs/workshops/conferences are an integral part of our market place and hope you find a new way in this age of Twitter/Facebook to survive and be able to share the information we need to keep up with our clients' needs for human healthcare. |
| I am very sorry to hear of this. Please do not despair, I'm confident that you will all emerge stronger and better as we see the economy rebound. |
| I am sorry to herethese bad news, because your meetings were very useful for academic and in particular for industrial participants. |
| This is truly sad news—I personally enjoyed your conferences and felt that you did it "the right way." You will leave a gap in our options for conferences - most of which have become overly commercial in recent times. Best of luck in your future endeavors—and if I can help you or any of your staff, just let me know. |
| It is sad to hear that you are a victim of the unfavorable conditions shaking the industry. I would like to thank you for your valuable contribution to the life science industry throughout the years and wish all of you good luck and fast recovery. |
| I realize that this is little consolation given your current business problems but I felt that I had to write to thank you and your team for the hard work and dedication you have shown in arranging these conferences. In my experience, the Wilbio conferences were excellent and unique events that offered a really useful forum for communication of applied research. I, for one, will really miss them. Good luck to you all in your future ventures. |
| I was very sorry to hear about the ‘shutdown’ of WilBio. I and members of my team have very much enjoyed attending and participating at various WilBio meetings over the years. They have been very beneficial meetings to many. These are indeed difficult and challenging times. I wish you and your team well for the future. |
| It is indeed sad to see your organization close down after so many years. I have always enjoyed attending the events and appreciated the personal touches that WilBio brought to them. I wish you well in whatever projects you start from now on. My best wishes to all the team. |
| It is with deep sadness that I receive this bad news. I have only attended the Baculovirus meetings but in my opinion these were the most valuable and the most interesting on the planet, in this field, not only for their scientiific content but also for their warm and friendly atmosphere. Even though I could never attend as many of these sesssions as I wished, they will be much regretted. I am very sorry for all of you, who have put so many efforts and energy to make all this possible during such a long period and I hope that your future will be bright. |
| I am devastated by this news. Like most companies, we has been struggling with the current economic climate and we sympathize with your situation. I hope you remain strong through this difficult period and always rest assured that you have done an excellent job with WilBio and that you and your team are an extremely talented and valuable group of individuals. I personally wish you all the best in your future endeavors. |
| I am sorry to hear the sad news. I had a great time participating in the WilBio conferences in the past years. The global economy downturn hits many industries. I really hope the economy could recover soon and bring new opportunities to you. Wish you all the best in your furture career endeavor. |
| I am so sorry to hear the news. I have benefitted from the Asian series and appreciate the monumental task that you and your staff have done to date. I am sure it was a tough decision for you to take this drastic action. Yes, the economic crisis and the flu pandemic have contributed to huge shrinkage in earnings for the commercial sector which organization of conferences heavily rely for sponsorships. Thank you to you and your staff for all the interesting conferences all these years. All the best and take care. |
| I am really sorry to hear about this and honestly hope that WilBio can be reactivated in a near future as it provided an excellent discussion forum for the Biotech industry. |
| I am so disappointed. I look forward to supporting you and your team in your future endeavors. In parting, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to help others improve the Biotech Industry! Knowledge is Power and your organization was a driver to implement and educate. GOOD LUCK to you all!!! |
| A lot of people in the industry, including me, will be very sad to hear of your suspension of activities. Thank you for all the hard work everybody has put into making insightful and relaxed conferences. Best regards for the future. |
| I'm sorry that things have ended up like this and sad that the industry has not been able to continue to support your great efforts in information sharing and cross communication. I wanted to say a personal thank you for a large number of extremely enjoyable meetings, shows, and evening/afternoon events. I'm sure that once the economy starts to pick up and business expands, the need for a similar type of meeting format will arise again, but who knows what will happen in the future. I hope to see you again soon in happier circumstances. |
| So sorry to hear this news. Although for the reasons you cite below, I haven’t been able to attend a WilBio conference recently, I fondly look back on attending a number of the Viral Vectors & Vaccines conferences over the years. They were very helpful and great venues for the gene therapy community. I wish you and everyone at WilBio the best of luck, and hope that we all can get our industry back on its feet and thriving again. |
| Sorry to hear the news on WilBio. You have provided an excellent venue for many years to the bioprocess industry to highlight and discuss scientific and business issues. Best wishes for you and your colleagues in your future directions. |
| We are so sorry to hear about your closure. Being a small business, we can certainly relate. We enjoyed the meetings with which we were involved. Best regards from all of us as you move forward. |
| Very sad. I found WilBio to be fairly unique and a good forum for discussing industry-related topics. I wish you well in your future endeavors. |
| I’m so sorry to see WilBio end its strong run. I know that you provided the industry with valuable information and networking opportunities. I hope that our economy improves at some point and that such a needed resource can return. Best of luck in your next endeavor . |
| I am so sorry to hear the news of WilBio’s closing. There is such a great need for high quality instruction in bioprocessing that you will be greatly missed. I wish we had the money to hire some of the WilBio folks, but we, too, are suffering. With respect to the need for post graduate instruction, at the start of the semester last year, I gave a little “biochemistry readiness quiz” to my juniors and seniors majoring in biochemistry. I wanted to find out with what I would be working. The quiz average was 15.5%. One person in 31 could tell me the acid for which the “A” in DNA stands. Not one chose to link the word “aroma” with a definition of aromatic in chemistry or aromatic in food science. Most could not define pH. A few could name one amino acid but not one could draw the correct structure of the amino acid he/she named. It is really pitiful, and these are the next generation of industrial biochemists, doctors, dentists, teachers, professors, etc. I feel sorry for the biopharmaceutical industry. Those coming into the field are more clueless than those leaving. |
| It is a sad day indeed! I thought you did a fantastic job of putting together different conferences and not only great speakers but very knowledgeable ones as well. Thank you and your staff for the last 15 years of service to the Biotech Industry. I greatly enjoyed the conferences I was able to attend. I was able to meet a number of scientists and regulatory personnel that I would not have been able to meet without your conferences. Also special thanks for being the first major group to acknowledge the importance of single-use systems. Thanks also for the work and harmonization of various individuals/groups to put the AAV references together and make them available for routine use. Lastly, thank you for providing training sessions for young scientists during the summer. As I have known you for many years, consider you a friend and a very knowledgeable individual, I just want again to say THANK YOU. Please contact me if there is anything I can assist you with in your future endeavors. |
| I wanted to thank you again for the opportunity to present at several of your conferences in the past, it was great experience and very helpful to our small company. Good luck in the future and I look forward to staying in touch. The economy has been terrible and it's a shame productive businesses have been damaged due to the irresponsibility of the financial companies and federal government. |
| I am so sorry to hear the news! Wishing you the best. I still remember the first WilBio conference I went to in Williamsburg in 1998. It was a wonderful setting, and one of my favorite meetings. For health reasons I haven't been attending meetings lately, but I wanted to express my regrets at your news. |
| Very sorry to hear that WilBio is closing. You have been something of an institution for a decade or more. You will be missed. Thanks for your help and support throughout the years. Hopefully you'll be back when the economy recovers. |
| Please accept my salute to your vision and contribution to biotech. |
| I am very sorry to hear about this. Your conferences and the information provided will be missed. Best of luck to you and everyone affiliated with WilBio. |
| You did a tremendous service for the industry with your meetings over the years. The current situation is unprecedented...a combination of the crazy derivatives markets but also the fact that we are spending billions of dollars on two wars abroad...dollars that otherwise would be recirculating in the domestic economy....with a multiplyer effect. We need to get our manufacturing industries back on US soil! I am proud of all you have done for the bioprocess industry and for the State of Virginia, by putting us on the map. I am also grateful for your support of my program [with the instrumentation donation] in years past. Hang on. We will eventually get the ship turned around. |
| I am very sorry to hear this. The baculovirus community will undoubtedly miss your excellent conferences in the topic. |
I can certainly understand the situation. I myself, a designated key person, am being severed this fall. Despite having some early interest, and even a tentative offer, all jobs in my field have completely dried up. There seems to be no interest in new personnel, just re-assigning existing persons to multiple jobs. With this environment, and the still existent corrupt banking/ real estate/ financial company situation, it is little surprise that money is extremely hard to get for travel, or to sponsor symposia like yours, one of the finest I have ever had the pleasure to attend.
To all in your group, I send my best regards, and a deeply felt congratulations for a job well done! Best regards, and good luck. |
| I am very sorry to hear that you will be shutting down. It has been a pleasure working with you over the years and I know we have made many new contacts and friends thanks to the WilBio meetings. Good luck to you all in your future endeavors. |
| I am very sorry to hear of this result, indeed these are tough times. I wish you all the best in future endeavors. |
| What a sad day! I know it has been tough for me as an independent to attend all of the conferences I would have liked to. Yours were always so good! Keep in touch and let me know where your career will head next. |
| So very sorry to hear about WilBio shutting down. It was a very useful forum for all of the disciplines/industry niches for which you established conferences. You served as a good leader for fostering industry communication. I hope you take initiative to build something similar to WilBio when the economy recovers and the time is right. I wish you all the best. |
| I am very sorry to hear of your difficulties. Your programs were always thoughtfully constructed and well organized. Your efforts will be missed. |
| My sincere condolences and sympathies on what must have been a wrenching decision. From the customer side of the conference business, I have seen all of the factors you cite all too clearly. The effort to cover important topics and events on a limited travel budget made for difficult and sometimes unsatisfying decisions. I hope that with a longer-term view you and your excellent staff can take some comfort in the knowledge that you provided quality conferences and information services to the industry. I believe you forced your conference industry colleagues to raise the level of their performance. We all benefit from that. I wish you success in your future endeavors and hope that we meet again. |
| I am very sorry to hear these bad news!! I very much enjoyed in April 2009 the Monoclonal Antibody conference in San Francisco (the 'Waterside'). The speakers were all great and the meeting very well organised. It was an outstanding event, compared to many other biotech conferences in the world. I wish that you can re-found WilBio after the economic crisis. Thank you for what you have done for the biotech industry in the past and all the best for your future! |
| So sorry to hear the news. For all the reasons you cite, this has been a devastating time for all of us—and with the turmoil in the industry, there are no signs that it will change for the better any time soon. WilBio provided a very important service to the industry and its a shame to see it go. Best wishes to you. |
| I am so sorry to hear this news. WilBio is such a high quality organization, and your staff is the reason! I will miss participating in your conferences. You have been such a great partner throughout these years. The AAV Reference Standard Statistics are being completed now, so we should be rolling it out this summer (hopefully)…..WilBio was instrumental in keeping it going, even at our snail’s pace. I wish you and your staff the very best. |
| It is with great sorrow that I hear this news. You have provided the scientific community with a valuable forum to discuss important issues surrounding process development and manufacturing. Like you, we have been hit by hard times, and it is with regret that we could not have supported WilBio more in the past. I hope that once economic conditions are right, you will be able to consider a restart. |
| Very sorry to hear the news about WilBio. Please keep in touch wherever you all might land if there are opportunities to continue networking collaborations. Best wishes. |
