Experimental Biology 2004

EB 2004 was held in Washington DC, April 17 through 21, 2004. All scientific and poster sessions were well-attended and overall enthusiasm for the meeting remains high. The APS portion of EB 2004 featured two unopposed Techniques and Technology in Physiology Workshops on Saturday and four "Cross-Sectional" Symposia. As in past meetings, APS hosted six guest societies: The Micro-circulatory Society (MCS), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR), the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (SEBM), and the Association of Latin American Physiological Societies (ALACF).

Meeting attendance was excellent. Out of a total of 6,339 volunteered abstracts submitted, 2,433 (38%) were programmed by APS. The total meeting attendance was 13,598. This figure includes 10,776 registered scientists, 2,037 exhibitors (and their guests), 195 high school students and teachers, 471 undergraduates and 119 guest and press registrants.

EB 2004 marked the ninth Physiology InFocus program.  Organized by the APS President John Williams, the program topic "Large Scale Systems Biology" included four symposia scheduled throughout the meeting. These were entitled "High Throughput Genomics," "Next Generation Technologies for Proteomics," "New Approaches to Large Scale Systems Biology," and "Applications of Systems Biology to Function and Disease." The InFocus program was preceded by a workshop entitled "Microarrays, Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry" which was organized by Susan Old. 

EB 2004 was the fifth year to introduce two Techniques and Technology in Physiology Tutorial/Workshops. The first, on proteomics is indicated above. The other tutorial was entitled "The Promised Land or Fatal Attraction? A Practical Overview of the Present and Future of Genetically Engineered Mice" and was organized by Donald Kohan. In addition, there were four "Cross-Sectional" Symposia developed to cut across sections: "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 Physiological Programming," and "Intracellular Trafficking of Membrane Proteins in Renal Epithelia." 

Other special programming included the Guyton Memorial Symposia entitled "Arthur C. Guyton: The Man and His Science" organized by Joey Granger and D. Neil Granger.  Speakers included John Hall, Allen Cowley, Gabriel Navar, and Harris Granger.  Robin Davisson, Christine Seidman and Kevin Fitzgerald presented the Bowditch, Canon and Randall lectures, respectively. Four "late breaking" featured topics were also developed. These arise from a critical mass of submitted abstracts in a specific area and are presented without funding in available rooms.  This year they were entitled "Heme Oxygenase/ Vascular Control," "Urinary Concentrating Mechanisms," "Controversies in Cardiac Preconditioning," and "Hot Topics in Lung Endothelial Biology."

APS Conferences

Two APS conferences were held in 2003: 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; 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.

The Adrenal conference had 133 registrants and the PG conference had 152 registrants. 

Scheduled APS Conferences for 2004 and 2005 include: 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; 2004 APS Intersociety Meeting, October 6-9, Austin, TX, "Integrative Biology of Exercise," organized by Ronald Terjung, Chair; 2005 APS Conference, July 16-20, 2005, Sheraton Steamboat Resort & Conference Center Steamboat Springs, CO, "Neurohypophyseal Hormones: From Genomics and Physiology to Disease," organized by Celia Sladek.

JPC Strategic Planning

The APS is planning to enter a new phase of strategic planning in the next year. A special meeting of the JPC was held on July 9, 2004 in Chicago. The purpose of this meeting was to update the committee members on plans for programming abstracts for IUPS and to discuss issues related to programming APS Conferences and EB meetings.

The first half of this meeting was dedicated to APS conferences.  The APS began this program in 1992 and has sponsored 20 conferences and five intersociety meetings.  Since September 2001, there has been a decline in attendance with attendance. There are clear financial issues as the number of attendees at conferences declines from loss of registration revenue and penalties from conference sites.  The JPC has made a number of attempts to increase the number of conference proposals.

The JPC discussed APS conferences at length and made the following recommendations.

1. Formation of an APS Conference Committee

Six to eight committee members with representation from different sections; JPC Chair sits on committee as ex officio; specifically charged with development and evaluation of APS Conferences; conference proposals come from two sources. Solicited: individuals in an interest area targeted by the committee; unsolicited: short letters of intent from the membership reviewed by the committee and then formally solicited. A solicitation indicates a very high interest in the subject area toward the development of the conference; recurrence of meeting possible if successful. The committee would be charged with defining measures of success.

2. Financial

Conference allocation includes registration for invited speakers (currently in addition to allocation); allocation increased from $25,000 to $30,000; finance committee and APS conference committee develops plan for how extramural funds are attributed to the conference, i.e., allocated to defray APS allocation; allocated to conference organizer for travel awards, reimbursements etc.

The JPC also discussed a number of issues related to EB meetings.

Featured Topics: It is felt that the organization of a FT needs to be centralized, that is performed by members of the JPC and not the FT organizers. In many cases, the FT organizer is not aware of the responsibilities associated with a FT including: selecting abstracts, informing abstract presenters of oral presentation. In addition, the FT organizer only has access to those abstracts submitted directly to a FT topic category and not many other abstract submitted to general categories which may fit into the topic being covered. The JPC offers the following recommendations:

JPC representatives take charge of programming abstracts for FTs; FTs be eliminated from topic category lists; a list of FTs will be included in call for abstracts along with instructions for potential topic categories; JPC informs selected abstracts of inclusion in FT and reminds them of the intended spirit of providing an opportunity for young investigators to make oral presentations at a national meeting; JPC interfaces with FT organizer.

Poster Sessions: The JPC on a number of occasions has discussed the organization of posters at the EB meeting.  This was sparked by a request from an APS member to integrate posters of common interest with other societies.  This is reminiscent of the "theme" program previously used.  It was initially suggested that one or two specific topic areas that cut across societies be used as a trial balloon (i.e., oxidative stress or signal transduction).  However, upon discussion it was felt that most attendees enjoy the atmosphere created by all APS posters being grouped together in a single area and that it increases our identity as a society.  Moreover, even important and large targeted areas such as oxidative stress or signal transduction could result in the isolation of those posters and their presenters away from the main APS area.  The JPC therefore recommends not pursuing this further.

Discussion of shorter duration was made on a number of other topics which should be deferred to additional strategic planning sessions or added to the agenda for the strategic planning retreat: reallocation of slots to sections; allocation of additional slots to the teaching section; corporate sponsorship of lectureships; corporate sponsorship of other program activities; new programmatic activities.

Curt D. Sigmund, Chair

Council Actions

• Council accepted the report of the Joint Program Committee.

• Council approved a motion to increase the allocation for APS conferences from $25,000 to $30,000. The funds will be used for travel, per diem, and speaker registration at the discretion of the conference organizer.