APS News

As originally published in The Physiologist
Volume 45, Number 1, February 2002, page 5

APS Council Holds Fall Meeting
The APS Council held their fall meeting at the Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, VA, November 3-5, 2001. The International Union of Physiological Scieces (IUPS) 2005 meeting, the APS Communications program, and the 2000 Strategic Plan were among many key issues on the agenda for discussion. Council was also presented with reports from the Publications, Finance, Joint Program, Membership, Public Affairs, Animal Care and Experimentation, Education, and Daggs Award committees. APS staff members Linda Allen, Marsha Maytas, Robert Price, Alice Ra’anan, and Margaret Reich also joined the meeting to assist with the committee report presentations.

Executive Director Martin Frank presented Council with the minutes of the IUPS 2005 National Organizing Committee Meeting held August 30, 2001, in Christchurch, New Zealand. At this meeting, the IUPS Council and Executive Committee approved a change of venue for the IUPS 2005 meeting from Washington, DC to San Diego, CA. The meeting will now be held in conjunction with EB 2005.

The Publications Committee announced the appointment of several new editorships. The first was the appointment of Dennis Ausiello as Editor of the Physiology in Medicine series, which will be published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Also, new editors for both the Journal of Neurophysiology and AJP-Cell Physiology were named. Eve Marder, Brandeis University, will be the new editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology, and Dennis Brown, Harvard University, will be the new editor of AJP-Cell Physiology. Both will begin their terms on July 1, 2002. Council also approved a motion made by the committee to provide free access to APS journals in developing countries. Both the committee and Council believe that making the journals available is of critical importance to these countries as they may contain information pertinent to treatments.

The Finance Committee presented Council with the final 2001 budget and the proposed 2002 budget, both of which were accepted and approved by Council. The Committee and APS senior management also made the recommendation that funding for the legacy data project be taken from the APS reserve accounts. The legacy data project will make available to the scientific community the content of all APS journals dating back to 1898. The content will be scanned and then posted on the respective APS journal web sites. The project will be handled in three separate phases, the last 10 years of content being posted first. Since this would be a one-time only cost, and APS would be providing a service to the scientific community, Council approved the funding for the project.

The Joint Program Committee reported on the two APS conferences held in October 2001. Although the two conferences took place shortly after the tragic events of September 11, attendance at the conferences was not greatly affected. Based on the success of these and past conferences, Council has requested that the Joint Program Committee work to increase the number of annual conferences from two to four.

Within the past year, a Communications Committee has been established, and an inter-departmental communications team was formed to begin implementation of the new APS communications program. The Committee and the inter-departmental team will work together to inform the media and public about new developments in the field of physiology, and the contributions made by APS to the field. They have begun working on identifying several internal APS programs that would be of interest to both the media and the public, and have also developed a procedure for identifying experts to respond to media questions regarding physiology. Efforts are also underway to publicize the science published in the APS journals. This is being done through a “journal release program.” Each month articles are reviewed and selected based on their newsworthiness. The articles are then summarized and compiled into a release that is distributed to science writers and media outlets and posted in the APS Press Room (http://www.the-aps.org/press_room/). They are also working to obtain media coverage for APS conferences and the awards program.

The Public Affairs Committee updated Council on the status of its new Legislative Action Center. The site provides users with up-to-date information on issues that will affect biomedical research. It also features a link to a special “Take Action” section that allows APS members to send letters to Congress and the President on current issues through the use of special software. This feature is available in the “Members Only” section on the APS Home Page. The legislative action center is accessible at http://www.the-aps.org/pub_affairs/leg_act_cntr/index.htm.

The last part of the Council meeting focused on the 2000 APS Strategic Plan. Executive Director Martin Frank presented Council with a status report of the plan. The report indicated that many of the action items in the Strategic Plan have either been completed or are in the process of being completed. One outstanding item addressed by Council was the formation of a Task Force on Trainees. Council asked Jo Rae Wright, Duke University Medical Center, to chair the task force, and she accepted. Together she and the Council will work to put the rest of the task force in place. The task force will work to get both student and postdoctoral members more actively involved in Society activities.

Additional details of the Council’s fall meeting will be presented to the membership at the 2002 APS Business Meeting. The Business Meeting will be held at EB 2002 on Tuesday, April 23 at 5:30 pm. All APS members are invited to attend.

One of the maxims of our discipline is that our science cannot be encumbered by national boundaries. Physiological information and knowledge flows freely between scientists in the US and colleagues around the world through scientific interactions at meetings and the publication of research in scientific journals. Throughout its existence, the APS has worked to uphold that view through societal efforts and our participation in the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS).

During the Presidency of Harvey Sparks (1987), the Society turned its attention to Africa, helping with the founding of the African Association of Physiological Sciences and providing subscriptions to the Society’s journals through the AAAS Sub-Saharan Africa journal donation program. In 1988, Past-President Frank Knox and Executive Director Martin Frank traveled to the Soviet Union to sign a bilateral exchange agreement with the leadership of Pavlov’s All-Union Physiological Society. Under the agreement, APS arranged for exchange visits between physiologists from the US and USSR. The Society’s continued its support of physiologists in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries after the breakup of the Soviet Union through the donation of our journals directly to institutions and through our participation in a journal program supported by the Soros Foundation. With the development of the Society’s online journal program, these efforts have become easier as institutions in developing countries have developed the infrastructure to receive online journals.

In 1999, the Society’s efforts were redirected to focus on the needs of colleagues in Latin America. At that time, Hector Rasgado-Flores took over as the Chair, International Physiology Committee and influenced the committee members and the APS Council to direct the Society’s attention to Latin America. Previously, the Society had focused on sending our journals to institutions in Latin America and representatives to the meetings of the Association of Latin American Physiological Societies (ALACF). However, under the new Latin American Initiative, the APS was seeking to do more with the goal of strengthening ties between APS, our sister physiological societies in Latin America, and physiologists working throughout the Americas. It was the Committee’s view that the US and Latin-American countries would benefit enormously from closer ties and that such efforts were timely and made both geographical and historical sense. The Committee also expressed the view that there were a great many talented students and scientists in Latin America who would benefit from such interactions.

While the International Physiology Committee had initially sought a larger program, the Council decided to start relatively small, allocating $20,000 annually to the Latin American Initiative and requesting that the Committee use the funds to support up to four courses/workshops/symposia per year to be held in Latin American countries with the participation of APS members. It was expected that the sessions would focus on the physiological sciences, broadly defined, and be designed to encourage the participation of students in the program. In addition, the APS invited the ALACF to sponsor a symposium at the Experimental Biology meeting.

Since the programs inception, the Society has approved funding for eight courses/workshops held in five Latin American countries. A full listing of approved programs is included below.

Latin American Initiative Awards 2002

Patricia E. Molina; LSUHSC, New Orleans, organizer of course on “Advances in Physiology; Impact on our Understanding of Health and Disease” hosted by the Medical School of Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala
Claudia Capurro, Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Guillermo Whittembury, Caracas, Venezuela, organizers of a workshop on “New insights in water transport across cells and membranes: Structure, function and regulation” hosted at the International Congress of Biophysics, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mario Parisi, Buenos Aires, Argentina, organizer of a workshop on “Volume regulation in animal cells and in plant vacuoles” hosted at the International Congress of Biophysics, Buenos, Aires, Argentina

2001

Mario Amzel, Johns Hopkins University, organizer of a course on “Molecular Modeling of Macromolecules,” hosted by the Institute of Biotechnology, Universidad Autonoma of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico
Mark R. Opp, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, organizer of a symposium on “Stressor-Induced Alterations in Sleep,” hosted by Department of Psychobiology, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, Brazil
Tania Zenteno-Savin, Center for Biological Research, Mexico, organizer of a workshop on “Comparative Aspects of the Oxidative Stress in Biological Systems,” hosted by the Center for Biological Research, La Paz, Baja California, Mexico
Reinaldo DiPolo, Department of Biophysics, IVIC, Venezuela, organizer of a course on “Mechanisms of Ion Transport Across Cell Membranes,” hosted by Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas (IVIC)

2000

Rafael Rubio, Faculty of Medicine, UASLP, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, organizer of a symposium entitled “Paracrine, Cytokine, and Hormonal Factors Involved in Cardiac Function and Remodeling” at the XX Latin American Physiological Society Congress, Cancun, Mexico

As noted by Mark Opp, University of Michigan, and organizer of a symposium held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, their session attracted 43 registered participants, most of whom “were students that do not have the opportunity to travel to international meetings.” One of the goals of the Latin American Initiative is to foster collaborative efforts between physiologists of the Americas. In order to meet this goal, Opp held a roundtable discussion at the meeting in Brazil to discuss the development of a program by which students from Brazil would spend short periods (one to three months) visiting laboratories in North America. According to Opp, “these discussions are likely to lead to student exchange, thus providing a direct measure of the degree to which our symposium was a success and met the objective of the Latin American Initiative.”

Similarly, Reinaldo DiPolo organized a training course held in Mochima, Venezuela that attracted 31 students and 30 faculty members. The main objective of the course was to allow Latin American students to obtain updates on topics of basic research in biophysics and physiology, with an emphasis on how molecular, biological and electrophysiological techniques can be used to unravel the structural properties of plasma membrane proteins associated with ionic channels, counter and co-transporters, and ion ATPases.
The Society is pleased to be able to contribute to the enhancement of the physiological sciences throughout the Americas. If you or your colleagues have suggestions for future initiatives or would like to apply for support under the Latin American Initiative, please contact Hector Rasgado-Flores (Hector.Flores@finchcms.edu) or Martin Frank (mfrank@the-aps.org). Information about the Latin American Initiative can be found at http://www.the-aps.org/awards/society/awd_ltn_amer_init.htm. The deadline for applications under the Latin American Initiative is March 1, 2002.

Donald M. Bers, President of the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology (ACDP), presented the ACDP’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Award, to Mordecai P. Blaustein, former ACDP President, during the organization’s recent fall meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico. The following are Bers’ remarks during the presentation, which was followed by a multi-media presentation by Jon Lederer and produced by him, friends, family, and members of Blaustein’s department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus.

We are honoring Mordecai P. Blaustein of the University of Maryland in Baltimore this evening for his illustrious service to ACDP, to science, and to physiology. He joins a long list of distinguished Chairs in receiving this award. Mordy served as ACDP’s Public Affairs Officer from 1994 to 1996, as President-elect in 1997, as President in 1998, and as Chairman of the Board of Directors in 1999.

Mordy Blaustein was born in New York City, has been married to his wife Ellen for 42 years, and has two children, Laura and Marc. Indeed, this award goes to Ellen too, as we all know how much patience and support we Chairs require.

He earned his Bachelor’s degree with honors in 1957 from Cornell University and his MD degree in 1962 from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He went on to Boston City Hospital for his internship and from 1963 to 1966 was a Medical Research Officer with the United States Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, MD. From 1966 to 1968 he was an NIH Special Fellow at the University of Cambridge in England. From 1968 to 1975 he held the position of Associate Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Washington University and from 1975 to 1980 was named Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at that same institution. Mordy has been Chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Maryland since 1979 (22 years) and is also a Professor in the Department of Medicine there. In 1985 he was named Scientific Director and Chairman of the Executive Board of the University of Maryland’s Hypertension Center.

Mordy’s dedication to service to professional societies extends beyond his meritorious service to ACDP. He has served the American Physiological Society as a Councillor from 1992 to 1995, as a member of the Society’s Finance Committee from 1995 to 1998, and since 2000 as Finance Committee Chair, a position he will hold until 2003. In addition, Mordy is serving on the Finance Committee for the Biophysical Society, a position he will also hold until 2003. This year he was named Councilor for the Biophysical Society, a position he will hold until 2004. Mordy also represented ACDP on the Council of Academic Societies. He has also organized numerous professional meetings and symposia (including one this past October when he served as a Member of the Organizing Committee for APS’s Fourth International Conference on Sodium-Calcium Exchange in Banff, Canada).

Throughout the course of his career Mordy has had consistent research grant support. He currently is Principal Investigator on two NIH grants, one in its 16th year investigating Ca and Na transport in vascular smooth muscle and the other in its 22nd year investigating Na and Ca signaling in glia and neurons. There is a long list of distinguished individuals who trained with him and who went on to make their own major contributions to physiological research and education. His bibliography includes more than 200 papers, beginning with five papers in 1966 (including one in Science) and nine in 2000. He is still very active and continues to make major contributions to the field.

In summary, Mordecai Blaustein’s esteemed career is quite remarkable. It is my great privilege to express our Association’s appreciation and deep gratitude to him for his contributions in science, education, service, and academic leadership. It gives me great pleasure to award the ACDP Distinguished Service Award to Mordy Blaustein.