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Welcome to the Pharmaceutical Microbiology Forum (PMF)

The Pharmaceutical Microbiology Forum (PMF) is a not-for-profit scientific and educational organization founded in 1992 to provide a forum for microbiologists involved in the pharmaceutical, medical device, personal product, biotechnology, cosmetic, and related microbiology laboratory areas to exchange information on microbiological issues. The PMF also provides an opportunity to interact with regulatory agencies internationally. Sponsors are critical for the continued existence of the PMF. Please click HERE for a downloadable pdf file containing all you need to know to become a valued sponsor of the PMF, and thank you in advance!

Interactive Forum

The previous PMFList, devoted to topics of interest to microbiologists working in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and medical device industries, was formerly distributed over email via the Internet. While useful, this approach became prone to interruptions, sometimes spanning weeks, and required moderation prior to the appearance of questions and answers. Having become more cumbersome than desired, the email-based approach has been replaced with a more modern and responsive online forum (click the "Forum" navigation button). The online forum is available for anyone to read, but submitting questions/answers/comments will require that you register to the Forum. If you have any questions about the Forum, please send them to [email protected]. Thank you!

News

August 4, 2025: Three new sidecar videos have been posted to the PMF Training page. They pertain to endotoxin tresting, thimerosal, vaccines, and RFK Jr., and finally, to antimicrobial resistance, resistomes and food production.

July 30, 2025: I have restarted developing and posting regulatory action reports and compendial updates to the PMF website (https://www.microbiologyforum.org). The regulatory action reports now include information from CDSCO and the EMA, along with the FDA. Thus, the navigation tab at the website has been changed from FDA Actions to Reg. Actions, with "Reg." standing for Regulatory Actions. The Compendial Updates has improved reports for the JP, and now includes WHO documents.

Links for these are:

Compendial Updates: https://www.microbiologyforum.org/Compendial_Updates/CU_July_25_2025.pdf Regulatory Actions: https://www.microbiologyforum.org/Regulatory_Actions/RA_July_29_2025.pdf

The YouTube channel for the PMF (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-HG1T9lzHXtOKJ67UMPLA) has many additional videos, These include basics of critical scientific thinking videos and a new video pertaining to the regulatory actions report, namely a sidecar video (https://youtu.be/0YeHPGOl5jU) Sidecar videos are intended to promote critical scientific thinking by presenting samples of questions that a reader of a scientific, technical, or even non-technical document, might come up with when reading with critical thinking engaged. Basics of critical scientific thinking are addressed in other videos at this channel. This first, introductory document pertaining to sidecars, presents more information pertaining to what is in, and how to use, these sidecar videos. As always, the sponsors of the PMF are greatly appreciated, and this is reflected in part by the inclusion of animations for each sponsor.

Links to all of the new PMF YouTube channel contents can be found at the PMF website Training page(https://www.microbiologyforum.org/Training.html).

July 8, 2025: A White Paper called "Critical Scientific Thinking, SOPs and Sidecars" has been posted on the Articles page. Here is the abstract from the paper:

"Critical scientific thinking should be encouraged when SOPs are written, trained in, and followed. This paper discusses some of the assumptions that can reasonably be made about SOPs, along with some basics of critical scientific thinking. The notion of “sidecar documents” is introduced as one method of encouraging critical scientific thinking at every relevant step while minimizing disruptions to timelines related to such thinking."

It is available at the Articles page of the website.

Critical scientific thinking, and critical thinking in general, seems to be increasingly lacking in the current political climate and with the increasing prevalence of AI-generated answers. The author has also seen numerous examples of the lack of such thinking in technical environments. Critical scientific thinking is helpful when dealing with such issues as regulatory and compendial compliance.

Critical scientific thinking takes time, effort, and discipline. The author's belief is that such thinking serves not only to benefit the user of the thinkers output, but the thinker as well, making the time, effort and discipline worth the expenditures.

June 23, 2025: A new category has been added to the online forum: Events. Here, workshops, conferences, meetings, seminars, webinars, etc. can be announced. Also, the PMF home page section Sponsor News has been modified to now be Sponsor News and Events. Sponsors may provide announcements of, again, workshops, conferences, meetings, seminars, webinars, etc., along with registration information. The prinsipal requirement for posting such events by sponsors is that they contain material of educational value. Events that sponsors wish to announce via the Sponsor News and Events section and the Events page should be sent to David Porter at [email protected] who will, after a brief review and consultation with the sponsor, place them in the Events page and add an announcement posting to the online forum.

April 22, 2025: The PMF would like to thank Novatek International for their continuing support of the PMF discussion group (the Online Forum) and the PMF in general in 2025.

Get a complete picture of the potential contamination of a product before, during, and after production with Novatek’s Contamination Control Software Solutions. Novatek Contamination Control Solutions, comprising Environmental Monitoring Management, Cleaning Validation Management, and Utilities Monitoring Management, is a powerful integrated solution that reduces the risk of contamination across the entire process of producing a pharmaceutical product in a regulated manufacturing environment.

Without the support of corporate sponsors such as Novatek International (and the others listed in numerous pages of the PMF website (https://microbiologyforum.org), the special Sponsors page at the website, and on numerous other content pages such as in Compendial Updates and FDA Actions reports, this service would not be possible.  The Pharmaceutical Microbiology Forum is truly grateful for all of our sponsors over the past 20+ years.

December 13, 2024: I have prepared a compilation of the topics and replies from the start of the new PMF Online Forum in February through December 12. It is called, logically enough, the PMF Online Forum Compilation 2024. It is provided free of charge and can be found at PMF Online Forum Compilation 2024. The Preface explains how the compilation is set up, and what will happen to topics and replies that are received after December 12.

Sponsor News and Events

"Bulletins", events, or other items of current interest related to PMF sponsors can be placed here.

[June 23, 2025] Rapid Micro Biosystems: Announces the following on-demand webinar: "Achieving Rapid Microbial Method Validation with Precise Reference Standard Quantification." Please see the Events page for details.

[July 3, 2025] FOCUS Laboratories: Announces the following: "PMF 2025." This does not come from a current sponsor, but given the historical linkage of the Forum to previous PMF meetings, it seems appropriate to make this event announcement. Please see the Events page for details.

Note that for each instance, some form of educational information is provided. As a nonprofit organization, the PMF needs to be certain that the information supplied by sponsors has an educational purpose and is not merely an advertisement. Items proposed for inclusion in the Sponsor News section, or in the sponsor's dedicated web page at the PMF website (click an icon in the first column of the table at the Sponsors page), should be sent to [email protected] for review.