The 2010 EB Meeting was held in Anaheim, CA April 24-28. Most scientific and poster sessions were well attended and overall enthusiasm for the meeting remains high. Total attendance was 11,996 representing a 12% increase over the EB 2009 registration. The primary participating societies were APS, ASPET (pharmacology), ASN (nutrition), ASBMB (biochemistry), ASIP (pathology), and AAA (anatomy). APS hosted five guest societies including the Microcirculatory Society (MCS), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR), Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (SEBM), and Association of Latin American Physiological Societies (ALACF).
The APS portion of the EB10 program featured two Techniques and Technology in Physiology Workshops on Saturday entitled “Computational Modeling and Simulation as a Tool for Studying Physiological Processes” and “Nanotechnology and Nano/Microfluidics”. APS also sponsored three “Cross-Sectional” Symposia entitled Humoral Factors in Renal Injury and Hypertension, Novel Redox Signaling in Ion Channel Regulation and Pathophysiology, Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress: at the Crossroads Between Fatty Liver, and Leptin Resistance, Obesity and Diabetes.
A total of 6,138 abstracts were submitted, an increase of 22% over the total abstracts submitted for EB 2009. Of the total abstracts submitted, 2,231 (36%) were programmed by APS. There were 718 late-breaking abstracts submitted, an increase of 37% from EB 2009. Of that total, 186 (26%) were submitted to APS for programming versus 138 submitted in 2009.
APS programmed 310 sessions in total including 180 poster sessions, 59 symposia, 46 featured topics, 16 lectures, 4 workshops, one refresher course, one mini-symposium, one awards session and two special sessions.
The Physiology InFocus program, organized by APS President Gary Sieck, was entitled “Physiology and Biomedical Engineering: Partners in Translational Research.” It ncluded four symposia scheduled throughout the meeting. These were entitled “Airway Smooth Muscle: Where does it Come From, How Does It Work, What Does It Do?”, “Preparing Students for Physiological Complexity—Emphasizing Quantitative Skills”, “One Hundred Years of Starling: His Contributions to Physiology”, and “Physiology at the Crossroads of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine”.
The lectures included the 12 Section Distinguished Lectureships, the MCS Landis Award Lecture presented by Ulrich von Andrian; the Physiology in Perspective—The Walter B. Cannon Memorial Award Lecture, presented by Jeffrey Fredberg; The Henry Pickering Bowditch Award Lecture, presented by Paul Janssen; and The Walter C. Randall Lecture in Biomedical Ethics, presented by Debra Anne Schwinn.
Experimental Biology 2011
The JPC met at EB 2010 to begin organizing EB 2011 that will be held Saturday April 9 - Wednesday April 13 in Washington, DC. This EB meeting will be a six-society meeting. The JPC next met on June 16, 2010 in Bethesda to schedule the platform sessions. The 2011 meeting will be the first time that sections have ‘clustered’ their programming on specific days within the meeting. The ‘clustering’ of sessions by section provided a framework which facilitated session programming/slotting allowing more time for optimizing room selection for specific sections and sessions.
The EB11 Call for Abstracts and online abstract submission site will be available by September 2010. The abstract deadline will be November 10, 2010. EB 2011 will again provide for a late breaking abstract deadline, anticipated sometime in February 2011.
The JPC received eight Cross-Sectional symposium proposals and approved the following four: “Role of microRNA in Cardiovascular System”; “Gas Channels”; “Therapeutic Potential of the ACE2/Ang-(1-7)/MasR Axis in Disease”; and “Understanding Blood Pressure Regulation Through Neural, Vascular, and Renal Specific Knockout/Knockdown Approaches”. In addition, two Techniques and Technology workshops will be scheduled on the first day of EB 2011. They are “Translational Research: A Primer for the Basic Scientist” and “Small Animal Models”. These workshops are designed to complement the Physiology InFocus series organized by APS President Peter Wagner. The Physiology InFocus program is entitled Molecular and Clinical Physiology in Human Disease and will feature a series of four symposia: “Left Heart Failure: Molecular, Physiological and Clinical Integration”; “Idiopathic and Inheritable Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH): From Genes to Clinical State”; “Physiology and Genetics of Obesity: Molecular Discovery and Translational Research”; and “Translational Biology of the Renal Podocyte”.
The meeting will also feature sessions organized by the APS Publications Department, Careers in Physiology Committee, Public Affairs Committee, Women in Physiology Committee, Education Committee, Liaison with Industry Committee, and Trainee Advisory Committee.
Experimental Biology 2012
The next meeting of the JPC will be held in December. During this meeting, programming of poster sessions from abstracts will occur. In addition to the set programming, the JPC will identify several additional abstract driven ‘non-funded featured topics’. There are 3-4 slots available on the morning of Wednesday, April 13 for these abstract driven featured topics; the oral sessions will follow the presentations on Wednesday afternoon. For these sessions, abstracts are usually drawn from several sections to consolidate an obvious critical mass, and therefore tend to be highly ‘interdisciplinary’.