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IUPS 2005—From Genomes to Functions |
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The passing of the IUPS flag from Shu Chien, Chair, IUPS 2005 National Organizing Committee (NOC), to Akimichi Kaneko, IUPS 2009 Organizing Committee, was a memorable moment for all those involved in the planning and execution of the XXXVth International Congress of Physiological Sciences. It represented the end of a wonderful, though at times tortuous, journey that began in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1997. At the 1997 IUPS Congress, the United States was one of eight countries that submitted a bid to host the Congress in 2005. Stanley Schultz, Chair, IUPS US National Committee, comprised of representatives from the American Physiological Society (APS), Society for Neuroscience, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Society of General Physiologists, the Microcirculatory Society, and the Biomedical Engineering Society, made the presentation in St. Petersburg. The official letter of invitation was issued by Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, and it noted that the last IUPS Congress held in the United States was in 1968 and that “a US meeting will provide a fertile venue for formal and informal communication and interaction between physiologists of many nations.” In making the presentation, Schultz invited the IUPS to hold the 2005 Congress in Washington, DC in August. The APS Council and the National Organizing Committee (NOC) began to have second thoughts about the timing and location of the Congress as it prepared to re-confirm its bid at the 2001 IUPS Congress in Christchurch, New Zealand. Would the international physiological community want to spend a balmy summer week in Washington, DC? Would the program be strong enough to draw physiologists away from the Experimental Biology meeting, the venue where many US and foreign physiologists would have already presented their work? Shu Chien and Allen Cowley, Jr., outgoing NOC Chair, worked closely with Ewald Weibel, IUPS President, prior to the Christchurch Congress to convince all parties that holding the IUPS 2005 Congress in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2005 meeting would be beneficial to the Congress and physiology. The IUPS Council was concerned that the Congress would lose its identity if it were held in conjunction with the larger EB meeting. Similarly, the Experimental Biology Board needed to be convinced that a joint IUPS Congress/Experimental Biology meeting was beneficial and that the EB meeting would not be overwhelmed by the world physiological community. Both groups were satisfied by the suggestion that the two meetings would not completely overlap; the IUPS Congress would start a day earlier in order to develop its identity before the start of the EB meeting. At the Christchurch Congress, the IUPS General Assembly accepted the US invitation to meet in San Diego in 2005, holding the IUPS Congress in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2005 meeting. It was, therefore, official and the US, represented by Chien, accepted the IUPS flag from Tony Macknight representing New Zealand, at the close of the 2001 IUPS Congress. The IUPS 2005 National Organizing Committee was thus charged with moving the planning for the Congress into high gear. The NOC put together several committees to coordinate the planning and development of the Congress. The most critical committees, the International and US Scientific Program Committees (ISPC and USSPC), were chaired by Walter Boron. The Fundraising Committee was chaired by L. Gabriel Navar, and the Local Arrangements Committee was chaired by Frank Powell. The NOC issued an invitation to the world physiological community to submit suggestions for the scientific program. Additionally, Boron consulted closely with the APS Joint Program Committee, chaired by Curt Sigmund, to create a cooperative environment to draw upon their traditional expertise in planning the program within the Experimental Biology framework. The goal of the USSPC and ISPC was to create programming tracks that would carry a particular topic (such as muscle) from the molecule to comparative genomics, to genetic models, to disease, to higher level functions. In response to the call for proposals, the USSPC/ISPC received over 300 suggestions for symposia, featured topics, tracks, and satellite meetings. It was impossible to use all of the suggestions because of scheduling limitations, overlap, relevance, and international representation. However, the USSPC/ISPC was able to cull through the proposals to build a strong program while insuring that there was adequate international representation on the program. From these suggestions, the Committee identified the topics and organizers for over 150 symposia, featured topics, lectures and workshops which were programmed into the 15 programming tracks: 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. The symposia, lectures and featured topic program involved over 475 scientists with nearly 40% from outside of the United States, and 15% of the speakers were female. In addition, 2,993 IUPS abstracts were submitted for the initial abstract submission deadline, along with 196 late breaking IUPS abstracts. These represented 35.7% of the 8,903 abstracts submitted for the joint IUPS/EB meeting (Table 1). The overall scientific registration for the IUPS/EB meeting was 12,613. Scientific registrants were asked to identify their society affiliations at the time of registration, resulting in some individuals selecting affiliation with multiple societies. As a result, there were 15,220 affiliations noted by the registrants of which 36.8% or 5,601 were associated with physiology. The IUPS/EB meeting also had an extensive exhibit program consisting of 557 exhibit booths provided by 405 companies. The National Organizing Committee and International Scientific Program Committee also designated a number of satellite meetings as official meetings of the XXXV Congress. The meetings were scheduled within a 150-mile radius of San Diego and held immediately before or after the Congress. To further encourage the participation of satellite meeting participants in the Congress, individuals who registered for both a satellite meeting and the Congress received a $50 credit on the combined registration fee. In addition, the NOC offered the satellite organizers two $1000 travel awards for their meetings. The meetings held as pre-Congress satellites included: 4th International Meeting on Rapid Responses to Steroid Hormones; Bio-physical Adaptation and Bioinspired Engineering; Coordinating Hemodynamic, Filtration, and Reabsorptive Functions of the Kidney; Dyspnea: Mechanisms and Management; From Metabolome to Function via Dynamic Measurements and Computational Models; In Silico Physiology: From Genome to Physiome; Mechanism of the Acupuncture Treatment in Disease; The Prenatal Environment, Programming and Postnatal Consequences; and Urothelial Cell Physiology in Normal and Disease States. The tradition of offering an IUPS Teaching Workshop in conjunction with the IUPS Congress was continued as a post-Congress satellite. As an international meeting, the NOC wished to encourage the participation of as many foreign scientists as possible in the IUPS Congress. Consequently, it allocated approximately $200,000 in support of an IUPS Travel Award program designed to encourage the participation of students and physiologists who are within 15 years of receiving their doctoral degree. The emphasis was placed on physiologists from underdeveloped countries and underrepresented minorities from the United States who had submitted abstracts to the Congress. Applications for travel awards were received from 413 individuals from over 65 countries and awards were made to 167 applicants. In addition, the APS and its disciplinary sections made awards to over 125 additional graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from both the US and abroad in recognition of their scientific presentations. Of the 167 IUPS travel awards made, only 140 individuals were able to accept the awards because of inadequate support from their institutions, as well as difficulties associated with obtaining travel visas as a result of the newly instituted USA Patriot Act. The APS worked closely with the National Academy of Sciences to facilitate efforts by travel award recipients and Congress attendees to obtain their visas for the meeting. Of the 119 respondents to a Post-Congress Travel Award Recipient Survey, 56 award recipients were graduate students and 37 received their doctoral degrees between 2000 and 2004. When the respondents were asked how they would rate the 35th IUPS Congress, 87% or 104 rated the Congress as an 8 or higher (with 10 being best). Additional details of the IUPS Travel Award Program can be found in a related article. The Opening Ceremony was held on Thursday, March 31 and involved presentations from Chien, Chair, NOC, Cowley, Jr., IUPS President, Virginia Huxley, Chair, US National Committee of the IUPS, and D. Neil Granger, President, APS. After declaring the opening of the 35th IUPS Congress with the theme of “From Genomes to Functions,” Chien welcomed the world physiological community to San Diego, CA, where he resides, and read a proclamation issued by the Mayor of San Diego, Dick Murphy. The proclamation noted that this was only the third meeting of the IUPS in the United States and the first to be held in San Diego. The proclamation ended as follows: “Now, therefore, I, Dick Murphy, the thirty-third Mayor of the City of San Diego, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2005, to be ‘International Union of Physiological Sciences Day’ and welcome 6,000 attendees of the 35th Congress to America’s finest city, wishing everyone a happy and productive stay.” Chien thanked the IUPS leadership, NOC members, APS, the Program Committees, EB, and all participants for working together to ensure the success of the Congress, which would make great impacts on the advancement of physiological sciences and the enhancement of health and well being of humankind. Cowley acknowledged the efforts of US physiologists and of the APS to create an outstanding scientific program in an exciting venue. He also expressed his appreciation to the strong participation of the international physiological community in the 35th IUPS Congress. Huxley highlighted the venues of past IUPS Congress that were the steps leading up to the San Diego Congress: St. Petersburg, Russia, to Christchurch, New Zealand, and on to San Diego. Granger welcomed the Congress attendees on behalf of the American Physiological Society. He noted that the IUPS has a long and successful history of organizing international meetings that have served to highlight and promote the progress of Physiology and to bring together physiologists from around the world in a forum for scientific exchange, for the creation of new research collaborations, to renew old friendships, and to forge new alliances.
Granger commented that in the 115-year history of the international physiological congresses, the American Physiological Society has had the privilege of hosting an international Congress on two previous occasions. He then proceeded to provide the attendees with an overview of those earlier US Congresses.
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