Armed with enthusiasm and feedback from inaugural meeting participants, an eight-member committee, comprised entirely of course directors and led by newly appointed ABCD Chair Janet Lindsley, organized the 2nd Medical Biochemistry Education Strategies Workshop, which convened from April 25-29, 2009, in Myrtle Beach, SC.  During this meeting, the first ABCD-driven initiative, Developing Biochemistry Competencies & Learning Objectives for Students of the Health Care Professions, was born.  The ABCD decided thereafter to hold biennial, rather than annual meetings, to enable leadership committees to develop more robust meeting agendas and to enhance the outreach of the organization.  In March 2010, elected Webmaster, David Franklin, developed and launched the official ABCD website, which became an invaluable resource for biochemistry educators worldwide.

Led by Chair Peter Ronner, the six-member ABCD Executive Committee (ABCDEx) organized the Teaching Biochemistry to Students of Medicine, Dentistry & Pharmacy, 3rd International Conference of the ABCD, which convened from April 30-May 4, 2011, in Myrtle Beach SC.  The meeting title reflected a desire to include and represent faculty teaching biochemistry in each of the three health professions disciplines and was adopted as the conference theme for future meetings.  During this conference of 90 educators representing 77 institutions from North America and the Caribbean, the group extended the Developing Biochemistry Competencies & Learning Objectives for Students of the Health Care Professions initiative.  Biochemistry topics were evaluated for their importance in health professions curricula through pre-meeting member surveys.  Ensuing collegial discussions at the meeting led to a consensus about the most important biochemistry knowledge that medical students should demonstrate.  Working groups produced a set of overarching competencies, mapped to Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competency domains, which was approved by conference attendees and later published in Medical Science Educator.¹ The working groups then developed learning objectives that were edited and linked to the medical biochemistry competencies by members collaborating in focus groups after the meeting.  The product of this effort became a member resource available on the organization website.  At the close of the third ABCD conference, the leadership committee began a scholarly tradition to enhance ABCD visibility, the publication of each conference meeting report in Medical Science Educator. Links to this publication and other meeting reports are found on the website Conference tab.

The next two ABCD meetings were held in Santa Fe, NM.  Richard Sabina, led the 12-member ABCDEx, in organizing the 4th International Conference of the ABCD, which convened May 5-9, 2013.  This meeting, comprised of 102 faculty educators from 90 institutions, included a morning session dedicated to Pharmacy education when topics, objectives and competencies more specific to pharmacy trainees were developed.  Educational scholarship became a major meeting focus, and attendees were introduced to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)-sponsored MedEdPORTAL for publishing peer-reviewed educational resources and were recruited to serve as peer reviewers.  In the meeting survey, 70% of respondents indicated that they had accessed the biochemistry competencies and/or learning objectives from the ABCD website, evidence of the value of these resources to members.

Led by Chair Neil Osheroff, the 13-member ABCDEx organized the 5th International Conference of the ABCD, which convened May 3–7, 2015.  The themes of curricular integration, the transition from teacher to educator, and educational scholarship were emphasized.  The concept of a standardized metabolic map was introduced and discussed for its possible use as a National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) reference for US medical licensure exam step 1 (USMLE Step 1).  An ad hoc committee was established and interested participants were recruited to further development and dissemination of the map.  Several additional initiatives arose from this meeting.  In light of the fact that curricular integration was significantly decreasing the number of free-standing medical biochemistry courses, the seeds of a name change for the organization to the Association of Biochemistry Educators were planted. In addition, the idea of membership dues, with an eye toward eventual independence of the Organization was raised.  Finally, a Professional Mentoring Initiative was established to promote member career development.