The XXXVth IUPS Congress is Upon Us

Approved Distinguished Lectureships at 2005 IUPS Congress

IUPS 2005 Congress Tentative Scientific Program

     In 1997, the APS membership was informed that the United States had won the bid to host the IUPS Congress in 2005. The letter of invitation was issued by Bruce Alberts, President, National Academy of Sciences, on behalf of the US National Committee for the International Union of Physiological Sciences (USNC/IUPS), which is comprised of representatives from six societies devoted to the physiological sciences. These societies are the American Physiological Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the Society of General Physiologists, the Microcirculatory Society, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The letter was delivered to the IUPS General Assembly during the XXXIII Congress in St. Petersburg, Russia by Stanley Schultz, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Houston, TX.

     Now, seven years later, planning for the Congress has moved forward very well. The XXXV International Congress of Physiological Sciences will be held in San Diego, CA, March 31-April 5, 2005, concurrently and in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2005 meeting. This meeting represents the first IUPS Congress in the new millennium and only the third time that the IUPS has selected the United States as the host country. The previous two Congresses in the United States were held in Boston (1929) and in Washington, DC (1968). Much has changed in the 36 years since the IUPS Congress was last held in the United States. Biological and biomedical research has grown and prospered. The human genome sequence has been completed and the next grand challenge is to elucidate the functions of the genes and their interactions. The unraveling of the genomes of multiple species (from Drosophila, to C. Elegans, to mice, rats and human) has provided an opportunity for a comparative understanding of how living organisms function. These exciting scientific advances that occurred at the end of the 20th and at the start of the 21st Centuries led to the adoption of “From Genomes to Functions” as the theme for the XXXV IUPS Congress.

Description of the XXXV Congress

     The IUPS National Organizing Committee, chaired by Shu Chien, University of California, San Diego, is responsible for the planning of the Congress. The Congress is innovative in format, covering a wide-range of topics in physiology and pathophysiology, from genomic and molecular biology through cells, tissues and organ-systems to clinical and industrial applications. The Congress will span the breadth of the physiological sciences with an emphasis on emerging fields such as comparative genomics, ecophysiology, physiological informatics, and genomic bases of function and disease.

     In planning the scientific program for the Congress, the International Scientific Program Committee, chaired by Walter F. Boron, Yale University, and co-chaired by Ole Petersen, University of Liverpool, UK, embodied an approach designed to stimulate genuine cross-disciplinary interaction. In addition, the format was designed to encourage active involvement from all who attend. The International Scientific Program Committee is comprised of the following scientists: Harold Atwood, Toronto, Canada; Barbara A. Block, Pacific Grove, CA; William W. Chin, Indianapolis, IN; David E. Clapham, Boston, MA; Allen W. Cowley, Jr., Milwaukee, WI; Malcolm Gordon, Los Angeles, CA; Peter Hunter, Auckland, New Zealand; Akimichi Kaneko, Tokyo, Japan; Yoshihisa Kurachi, Osaka, Japan; Richard P. Lifton, New Haven, CT; Jimmy Neill, Birmingham, AL; Roger A. Nicoll, San Francisco, CA; Denis Noble, Oxford, UK; Edward M. Ruben, Berkeley, CA; Bengt Saltin, Copen-hagen, Denmark; Irene Schulz, Homburg/Saar, Germany; Ann Sefton, Sydney, Australia; Curt D. Sigmund, Iowa City, IA and Jo Rae Wright, Durham, NC.

     The scientific program will run for five full days. On average, there will be four distinguished lectures each day, featuring outstanding research scientists reviewing their field and presenting their latest findings. Throughout each day, there will be 10-12 simultaneous two-hour sessions consisting of symposia on defined research areas and featured topics sessions designed to complement these symposia through the creation of sessions derived from submitted abstracts. In general, there will be over 30 sessions presented each day. In addition, there will be many poster sessions featuring work in related areas. The symposia, featured topics, and poster sessions will be highlighted as components of disciplinary tracks. A total of 15 tracks have been identified and include the following: Calcium Signaling, Cardiac, Ecophysiology for the 21st Century, Epithelia, Feeding, Fuel and Fat, Genomics, Mechano- and Chemo- transduction, Muscle and Exercise, Neural Control of Locomotion: From Genes to Behavior, Renal Control of Blood Pressure, the Regulatory Brain, Thermoregulation and Energetics, Tissue Dynamics in the Lung, and Vascular Physiology. In addition, there will be numerous sessions that do not relate directly to a specific track but represent important areas of physiology.
 
     In planning the scientific program for the meeting, the organizing committee drew upon over 300 symposia suggestions received from all over the world. From these suggestions, the Committee identified the topics and organizers for over 150 symposia, featured topics, lectures and workshops. The symposia and lectures planned for the Congress are listed on pages 109-115. Free communications will be presented as posters, and highly rated abstracts will also be selected for oral presentation in featured topic sessions. This will provide the presenters with an opportunity to share their work with the scientific community in two formats, enhancing the opportunity for information exchange and providing graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with an opportunity to present their work in a platform session. Several workshops will be held during the week on topics including ethical issues and teaching methods. Continuing Medical Education (CME) will be available to those attendees requiring such credits.

     The XXXV IUPS Congress will be held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology ‘05 meeting, scheduled from April 2-6, which will include the participation of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the American Society for Investigative Pathology, the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, the American Association of Immunologists and the American Association of Anatomists. In so doing, the Congress will have the participation of the 4,500 physiologists that traditionally attend the Experimental Biology meeting, and IUPS, as well as EB registrants, can attend sessions provided by all participating societies without incurring an additional registration fee. One registration fee, whether listed as an EB or an IUPS registration fee, provides access to all sessions. In addition, the large and extensive exhibit programs, normally associated with the Experimental Biology meeting, will be accessible to the members of the international community attending the IUPS Congress.

     There are more than a dozen satellite meetings linked to the main Congress. These meetings will be held within a 150-mile radius of San Diego in order to encourage all participants in the satellite meetings to attend the main Congress. The registration fees for the satellite meetings have been adjusted to encourage such participation.

     The organizers of the Congress and the APS leadership encourage you to participate in the XXXV International Congress of Physiological Sciences to be held March 31-April 5, 2005 in San Diego. For those with limited funds, the USNC is providing a travel award program designed to encourage the participation of students and physiologists who are within 15 years of receiving their doctoral degree. Emphasis will be provided to physiologists from underdeveloped countries and underrepresented minorities from the United States who have submitted abstracts to the Congress.

     Additional details and information will be published in future issues of The Physiologist and will be posted to the IUPS web site http://www.IUPS2005.org. Look forward to seeing you in San Diego at the 35th IUPS Congress.

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