Experimental Biology 2003
EB 2003 was held in San Diego, CA, April 11 through 15, 2003. All scientific and poster sessions were well-attended and overall enthusiasm for the meeting was high. EB 2003 featured two unopposed Techniques and Tech-nology in Physiology Tutori-al/Workshops on Friday and five "Cross-Sectional" Symposia.
As in past meetings, APS hosted six guest societies: The Microcirculatory Society, the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR), the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, and the Association of Latin American Physiological Societies.
Meeting attendance was excellent. Out of a total of 6,496 volunteered abstracts submitted, 2,521 (39%) were programmed by APS. The total meeting attendance was 12,734. This figure includes 9,800 registered scientists, 1,851 exhibitors, 94 high school students and teachers, 492 undergraduates and 497 guest and press registrants.
EB 2003 was the fifth year that the meeting was not organized around scientific themes. Themes were eliminated with the understanding that some other process could be employed to better facilitate "inter-Society" programming. However, it should be noted that a number of sections, cardiovascular (CV) in particular, has brought the issue back to the table to discuss. Their main concern is that a number of societies program posters in the area of cardiovascular research; therefore, a contiguous layout of CV posters on the exhibit hall floor may be more appealing. The obvious problems are logistics in programming across societies and different times for poster attendance. This is an issue that should continue to be discussed. In addition, efforts should continue to develop cooperative programs among societies. During EB 2003, APS and ASBMB cooperated to present two symposia on the "NHLBI Programs in Genomic Applications." Additionally, APS cosponsored a symposium organized by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences (ASNS) entitled "Glucagon-like Peptide 2: Function and Clinical Application."
EB 2003 marked the eighth Physiology InFocus program. Organized by the APS President Barbara A. Horwitz, the program topic "Physiological Implications of Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress" included four half-day symposia entitled, "General Overview and Disease Relevance," "Emerging Concepts in Oxidative and Nitrosative Signal-ing," "Cardiovascular Consequences of Oxidative/Nitro-sative Stress," and "Pulmonary and Endocrine Con-sequences of Oxidative/Nitrosative Stress." Attendance was outstanding. The InFocus program was preceded by a workshop entitled, "Methods to Detect Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress," which was organized by Matthew Grisham and Joey Granger. The Physiology InFocus topic for EB 2004 will be organized by current President John Williams on the topic of "Large Scale Systems Biology."
EB 2003 was the fourth year to introduce two Techniques and Technology in Physiology Tutorial/Workshops. The first, on oxidative stress, is indicated above. The other tutorial was entitled, "Frontiers of in vivo Molecular Imaging: Crossroads Between Physiology and Pathology," and was organized by Michael S. Goligorsky and Alan Verkman. In addition, there were five "Cross-Sectional" Symposia developed to cut across sections: "AT-1 and AT-2 Receptors: Antagonists in Cellular Action?" "Lineage Specific Programming of Stem Cells into Tissues," "Mitochondrial Regulation of Cell Function," "Neuron- Glia Interactions in Nervous System Function," and "Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors (PPARs)."
Experimental Biology 2004
The Joint Program Committee (JPC) met during EB 2003 to begin, and again in June to finalize the program of symposia and featured topics for 2004.
The APS continues to be aware of the importance of including women and members of underrepresented minorities as well as junior scientists on the panels of invited speakers. By and large, the sessions scheduled this year showed this awareness. In addition, through the efforts of the Liaison with Industry Committee, the JPC understands the importance of including researchers from industry as speakers on symposia and featured topics. The Section Program Committees will be advised to remind applicants of these matters in considering participants for future proposals.
The 2004 Physiology InFocus program will include four sessions on the topic of Large Scale Systems Biology with sessions tentatively entitled, "Gene Expression: The Tran-scriptome," "Proteomics," "Large Scale Systems Biology," and "Applications of Systems Biology in Physiology and Disease." Two workshops in the same general research area are also planned entitled, "The Promised Land or Fatal Attraction? A Practical Overview of the Present and Future of Genetically Engineered Mice," and "Microarrays, Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry." Four cross-sectional symposia entitled, "Biological -Applications of Nanotechnology," "The Heme-Heme Oxygenase-Carbon Monoxide System and the Control of Cardiovascular and Renal Function," "The Mechanisms and Impact of Fetal Physio-logical Programming," and "Intracellular Trafficking of Membrane Proteins in Renal Epithelia," and two Transla-tional Research symposia entitled, "Use of Mouse Models to Understand the Pathophysiology of Diabetes: Implications for Preventing Complications," and "Sympathetic-Adrener-gic and Baroreflex Function with Aging,� are also planned.
The 2003 meeting saw the implementation of the "meeting within a meeting" scheme on the general topic of Oxidative Stress. The 2004 meeting will expand on this to include "meetings within the meeting" on Aging, Diabetes, Stem Cells, Ion Channels, Oxidative Stress, Vascular Regulation and Intracellular Trafficking. These "themes" will be used for advertising the meeting. Moreover, we used these thematic areas to program the meeting, and guest societies, in particular, such as AFMR were very enthusiastic and also participated in our thematic program. As in past years, rooms and times were first selected for the lectures and InFocus sessions. Then, we programmed symposia and feature topics around these themes to ensure that an attendee wanting to see each session in a theme can do so without conflict. Unfortunately, we were unable to keep each theme in a specific room throughout the meeting as rooms of some sizes are in high demand. Finally, sections completed their programs in the remaining space.
A special program at EB 2004 will remember Arthur Guyton. This program, organized by Joey Granger, is entitled, "Arthur C. Guyton: The Man and His Science," and will feature John Hall, Allen Cowley, L. Gabriel Navar, and Harris Granger as speakers.
The 2004 Henry Pickering Bowditch Award lecture will be presented by Robin Davisson from the University of Iowa; the Walter B. Cannon Memorial Award lecture will be presented by Christine Seidman of the Harvard Medical School. The Walter C. Randall lecturer is not yet determined.
APS Conferences
By and large, this program, which was initiated in 1991, has been very successful and is improving. The Society is striving for a goal in which the vast majority of scientists will consider APS Conferences a premier meeting to attend. APS Council would like to increase the number of APS Conferences from two to four per year. The additional two conferences are to be organized on Physiological Genomics and Physiology and Medicine: Translational Research. The first Physiological Genomics conference was held in 2002 while the first Translational Research conference will be held in 2004. The APS Program Committee is soliciting ideas for future APS conferences in these two areas as well as other timely topics. One proposal on Phosphoinositides was evaluated but was not recommended for funding.
Scheduled APS Conferences include:
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2003 APS Conference, September 19-14, Banff, Alberta, Canada, "Adrenal Steroid Hormone and Control of Extracellular Fluids: from Genetics to Physiology" organized by Daniela Rotin and Douglas Eaton.
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2003 APS Physiological Genomics Conference, October 1-4, Augusta, GA "Understanding Renal and Cardiovascular Function through Physiological Function" organized by David Pollock, Jennifer Pollock, Elizabeth Nabel, Clinton Webb, and Josephine Briggs.
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2004 APS Translational Research Conference, September 8-11, Snowmass, CO "Immunological and Pathophysiological Mechanisms in Inflammatory Bowel Disease", organized by Matthew Grisham and Fabio Cominelli.
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2004 APS Intersociety Meeting, October 6-9, Austin, TX, "Integrative Biology of Exercise", organized by Ronald Terjung, Chair.
Curt D. Sigmund, Chair
Council Actions