The International Physiology committee met during Experimental Biology to discuss strategies relevant to the proposed Strategic Plan developed by the leadership of APS during the fall on 2005. It was considered by the committee that active development of programs was required to implement some of the goals established pertaining to growth and diversification of APS. Among initiatives that are proposed is an increase in membership of the International Committee by two active members to target representation from Latin America. In addition, representation from the leadership of both the Latin American Physiological Society and the Federation of European Physiological Societies in the committee is envisioned as a positive strategy to strengthen communication and foster International participation in APS activities. Additional initiatives that are proposed to engage and retain active international participation in APS activities are the inclusion of their participation in section-sponsored symposia. Ultimately, the goal of the committee is to implement an International Committee sponsored symposium at EB. This would create a forum in which scientific presentations from outstanding international scientists would be an integral part of the program at EB. We think this would encourage more active participation of our international members in our scientific meetings. This initiative is being proposed in parallel to establishing representation of the International Committee on the Joint Program Committee to facilitate and increase active participation of APS international members at meeting.
In addition to ensuring that scientific programming increases international APS representation in future meetings, it has become evident that we, as US-based APS, need to become ambassadors for our visiting international members. We all can reach out to make the experience of visiting international members and their integration during the EB meeting a memorable experience. The goal of our committee is to develop a mechanism that would allow pairing in a buddy system visiting international members with US scientists based on common section affiliation. This would maximize the experience and would provide the international member an opportunity of experiencing the meeting from the US perspective. While some of these initiatives need to be spearheaded by the APS leadership, some will require the active participation of the membership at large.
A successful program developed by the International Committee is that of the Latin American Initiative. This program provides funds in total of $5,000 to help defray costs for up to four scientific symposium or workshops to enhance the growth and development of physiology in Latin American countries. This year, seven outstanding proposals were received for consideration. Of these, four were selected and recommended for funding. These include: 1) Centro de Estudios Cient-ficos de Chile; Summer School of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Electrophysiology & fluorescence imaging in physiology. This course was organized by Ramon Rogelio Latorre, and Felipe Barros. 2) International symposium of neuroendocrinology: "Neuroendocrine control of body fluid homeostasis: past, present and future" This course was organized by Jose Antunes-Rodrigues, Faculty of Medicine Ribeirao Preto, Department of Physiology, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil. 3) "Molecular tools for the study of integrative physiology" organized by Willis K. Sampson, St. Louis Univ. School of Med. Pharmacological & Physiological Sciences, MO and Carmen Clapp, UNAM, Juriquilla, Mexico. 4) VII International Conference on Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry ICCPB. "Integrative Physiology meets Biodiversity", organized by Jose E. Bicudo, Instituto De Biociencias Rao Do Matao, Sao Paulo, Brazil.