APS News

Council Meets in Bethesda
Granger Thanks APS Staff
2004 APS Impact Factors Are Published by Thomson/ISI
Nebraska Physiological Society Annual Meeting
Award-winning Cover for Physiological Reviews
FASEB Journal Announces New Editor, Gerald Weissmann

Council Meets in Bethesda

The APS summer Council meeting was held in Bethesda, MD, June 16-18, 2005. During the meeting Council met with the APS committee chairs. The chairs presented reports of the committees’ programs and accomplishments during the past year, and plans for the coming year. These committee reports are published in this issue of The Physiologist.

The Animal Care and Experimentation Committee (ACE) reported that the management of pain and distress in laboratory animals continues to be a topic of concern to both the scientific community and the public. Animal research protocols must include appropriate provisions for relief of pain and distress consistent with the scientific aims of the study, but researchers sometimes find themselves at odds with their institution’s IACUCs with regards as to what those measures should include.
 
Last year the APS sponsored a workshop on animal pain, stress, and distress issues which included scientists from APS and other scientific societies, laboratory animal veterinarians, and research policy and oversight representatives from the NIH, FASEB, the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR), and Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC). The group tried to formulate a definition of “distress” that would not only be scientifically valid, but would be acceptable to IACUCs. Two members of this workshop group—APS member Bill Martin (Merck and Company, Inc.) and Endocrine Society member James Herman—were invited to present a workshop session on pain and distress issues at the March 2005 IACUC meeting sponsored by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R).
The Committee reported that the new animal welfare regulatory standards were under development by the Council of Europe, and efforts to promote international “harmonization” of animal welfare standards are emerging areas of concern to APS members. The ACE Committee presented a symposium at IUPS 2005 entitled “Transnational Impacts of Animal Welfare Regulations.” The Committee believed that this was a necessary first step to ensure that US and international researchers are made aware of likely changes in animal welfare regulations that will be taking place over the next several years.

The ACE Committee reported that the federal Farm Bill is due to be reauthorized next year, and it is anticipated that animal activists will seek to use this as a vehicle to amend the Animal Welfare Act. The Committee is expecting that the activists will seek to have the Helms amendment removed from the Animal Welfare Act. The Helms amendment specifically excludes rats, mice, and birds bred for research from the Animal Welfare Act oversight. The Helms amendment was anathema to activists, who have been trying for 30 years to extend USDA’s oversight to these species.

The Communications Committee reported that it has reorganized some elements of the Press Room webpage to make it more concise and user-friendly (http://www.the-aps.org/press/). These changes include a new “Resources” section to house resource modules and other outreach materials currently in development by the Communications Committee; a reorganized “Press Releases” area; and a “Journalist Information” area where reporters can join the mailing list or register to attend an APS conference.

The Committee has developed resource modules on obesity, comparative physiology, and the use of laboratory animals. Other modules currently in development or planned include environmental physiology, hypoxia, aging, hormones, sleep, exercise and heart failure. These modules can be used in various outreach programs including story ideas for the media and general audience resource documents.

The Committee organized and presented a Communications Symposium at the 2005 IUPS Congress entitled “Developing and Implementing a Communications Strategy: the Basics for the Basic Scientist”, which provided an overview of the key elements required to translate a basic science message into a communications program for the public. The Committee will be sponsoring another symposium at EB 2006 entitled “Ground-floor Communications: Creating a buzz about Science through Community and Constituency Outreach.” The goal of this symposium is to demonstrate how scientists can work as champions for research and increase community awareness of science.

The Liaison with Industry Committee sponsored its fifth symposium at IUPS 2005 Congress which was entitled: “Metabolic Syndrome: From Clinical Insights to New Therapies.” The symposium included the topics of genetic and physiological insights into metabolic syndrome, PPARalpha/gamma activation for the treatment of dyslipidemia and insulin resistance, Dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibition for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and the role of sphingolipids in atherosclerosis and metabolic syndrome. The Committee will be sponsoring a symposium at EB 2006. The focus of this symposium will be “Advances in Ion Channel Physiology.”
The Publications Committee continues to its work to make each individual APS journal the best in its field, and to provide the highest possible quality publications. The Journal Impact Factors made a strong showing again in 2004; with Physiological Reviews ranking 3rd among all journals. The Committee reported that use of APSCentral has allowed journal editors to decrease their time to first decision, which averaged 30 days in 2004 across all the monthly original research journals. Implementation of APSCentral has also helped the editors of PRV and Advances manage the review process of these journals more efficiently.

In response to the NIH policy requesting that authors submit their accepted manuscripts to the NIH database for archiving and public dissemination, the Committee agreed to add language to the Manuscript Submission Form, along with an explanatory memo to authors, granting authors permission to voluntarily submit their accepted manuscript to the NIH’s PubMedCentral, with public release 12 months after final publication in the journal. This decision was made to help authors meet the perceived requirement of the NIH while preserving APS’ copyright of their accepted articles.

The Women in Physiology Committee reported that the second Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award was presented to Christin Carter-Su, University of Michigan, at the IUPS/EB 2005 meeting. The Committee also co-sponsored a workshop, “Managing a Laboratory,” with ASPET at the IUPS/EB 2005 meeting. The workshop was designed to help young physiologists deal with many of the issues they will face starting their own laboratories. The Committee will again co-sponsor a workshop with ASPET at EB 2006. The focus and title of the workshop will be “Balancing Life and Career.” Specific topics for the symposium will be balancing research, teaching, service activities, balancing job and family, and dual careers. The target audience is young scientists interested in learning skills for their current and future careers. The workshop will also offer a venue for networking between junior and senior scientists.

The Trainee Advisory Committee (TAC) reported that they formulated and conducted a Trainee Survey. The survey included ranking the importance of several issues such as balancing work and family, mentoring, grantsmanship, and teaching. A total of 224 trainees completed the survey. These results are being shared with the Education, Careers in Physiology, Women in Physiology, and Porter Physiology Development Committees as well as with the APS Membership and Marketing Departments. The TAC is organizing the first TAC-sponsored symposium, which will be presented at EB 2006. The topic of the symposium will be “Transition from Postdoc to New Investigator.” The Committee is working to finalize the session speakers and format.
Reports from the Awards, Careers, Committee on Committees, Education, Finance, International Physiology, Joint Program, Liaison with Industry, Long Range Planning, Membership, Perkins Memorial Fellowship, Porter Physiology Development, Public Affairs, Section Advisory Committees, and Senior Physiologists were also presented to Council.

APS Committee Chiars: Row 1: L. Gabriel Navar, Sinya Benyajati, Hannah Carey, Caroline Sussman; Row 2: William Galey, Patricia Molina, Chahrzad Montrose-Rafizadeh, Lisa Harrison-Bernard; Row 3: William Talman, Gregory Florant, Peter Friedman.	APS Council: Row 1: Susan Barman, Dale Benos, Neil Granger, Kim Barrett; Row 2: Jeff Sands, Douglas Eaton, Irving Zucker, Helen Raybould, Carole Liedtke; Row 3: Kenneth Baldwin, Curt Sigmund, Thomas Lohmeier, Irving Joshua; Row 4: Peter Wagner, Gary Sieck, Robert Carroll.

Granger Thanks APS Staff

APS President Douglas Eaton hosted a staff appreciation reception for the Society’s employees on Thursday, June 16. The event was attended by the APS staff, Council and Committee chairs. APS Executive Director Martin Frank and President Eaton, on behalf of the Council and chairs, thanked the staff for their efforts over the past year. Eaton said that it was an honor to be president of such a quality organization, and a pleasure to work with the APS staff.

During the appreciation reception, a ceremony is held to recognize those staff members who have served the Society. This year, Eaton presented a 25+-year certificate to Samer Masri (Circulation Manager); 20-year certificate to Martin Frank (Executive Director); 10-year certificates to Teki Bynum (Peer Review Coordinator), Virginia Million (Journal Supervisor); and 5-year certificates to Desiree Rye (Journal Supervisor), Kathleen Pleet (Copy Editor), Stephani Rozier (Subscription Database Specialist), Beverly Rude (Journal Supervisor), and Penelope Ripka (Peer Review Assistant). Eaton thanked the employees for their years of service.

APS President Douglas Eaton, Beverly Rude, Stephani Rozier, Desiree Rye, Kathleen Pleet, Virginia Million, Samer Masri, Penny Ripka, Teki Bynum, and Martin Frank.

2004 APS Impact Factors Are Published by Thomson/ISI

Thomson/ISI has released its 2004 Science Edition of the Journal Citation Reports, which gives journal impact factors and rankings of 5,968 science journals. The 2004 impact factors of the journals of the APS, along with a comparison of the past three years, are given in the table below. The table also shows the rank of APS journals in the physiology category, and each journal’s rank in its related field, as well as each journal’s cited half-life.

Nebraska Physiological Society Annual Meeting

The eighth annual meeting of the Nebraska Physiological Society (NPS) was held on Friday, May 20, in the Durham Research Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, NE. Attendance at the meeting totaled 93 registered individuals, and 38 research posters were presented by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from seven research institutions. The meeting began at 9:00 am with a welcome and introductory remarks from Andrea Cupp, NPS President and Professor, Department of Animal Science, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (UNL).

The APS-sponsored keynote address was presented by John H. Nilson, Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor, Director, School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University. The topic of Nilson’s presentation was “Targeted Overexpression of LH in Transgenic Mice: an Endocrine Train Wreck that Signals Hypersecretion of Several Hormones, Engineers Multiple Tumors, and Derails Expression of a Plethora of Genes.”

The student presentations followed the APS lecturer. Four students (two graduate and two postdoctoral) finalists were selected to present their research projects. Each presenter was allowed a 10-minute session followed by a short question/answer period. The finalists were selected based on the quality of the abstracts submitted. Awards of $250 were presented to: Tarek M. Mousa, Dept. Cellular & Integrative Physiology, UNMC, Postdoctoral Fellow Award: “Exercise Training Enhances Baroreflex Sensitivity by an Angiotensin II Dependent Mechanism;” and Lynn Roy, Dept. Pharmacology, UNMC, Graduate Student Award: “Effects of Aldehyde Adducts on RyR2 Function.”

The student presentations were followed by an educational presentation by Barbara Goodman, Professor and Director of Special Programs and Science Education, University of South Dakota: “Physiology Education: What Works and What Works Better.”

The morning session concluded with an update on the state of the American Physiological Society presented by Irving H. Zucker, Professor and Chair of the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, UNMC. Zucker highlighted current programs and activities of the parent society.

The NPS business meeting followed lunch. Janet Steele, Dept. Biology, University of Nebraska, Kearny NE, (UNK) updated the members on the status of the Nebraska Local Outreach Team (LOT), which is a branch of the APS Frontiers in Physiology program. Harold Schultz, NPS Secretary-Treasurer and Professor, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, UNMC, presented the current financial status of the NPS. He noted that the current financial status of the NPS is sound and thanked this year’s sponsors for their support. Sponsors included the American Physiological Society, the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, UNMC; the Department of Animal Science, UNL; the Dean’s Office of the College of Medicine, UNMC; the Dean’s Office of the School of Medicine, Creighton University, Omaha, NE; The Nebraska Medical Center; Corporate sponsors were North Central Instruments; AdInstruments; Visual Sciences; and Columbus Instruments.

NPS President Cupp presented a plaque to honor prior NPS president, Dale Bergren, Department of Biomed-ical Sciences, Creighton University. Cupp then thanked the staff for their help and support during her presidency: Cindy Norton, Dorothy Burgin, Pearl Sorensen, and Richard Robinson. She then introduced NPS President for the coming year William Mayhan, Department of Cellular & Integrative Physiology, UNMC.

Officers for the coming year are: President: William G. Mayhan, Dept. Cellular & Integrative Physiology, UNMC; President-Elect: Harold D. Schultz, Dept. Cellular & Integrative Physiology, UNMC; Secretary/Trea-surer: George J. Rozanski, Dept. Cellular & Integrative Physiology, UNMC; Councilor: J. Joe Ford, USDA Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, NE; Councilor: Kaushik P. Patel, Dept. Cellular & Integrative Physiology, UNMC; Councilor: Janet E. Steele, Dept. Biology, UNK.

Following the business meeting participants visited the sponsors’ displays and viewed the research posters. Departments and institutions represented in the poster session included the Departments of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, Pharmacology, Genetics Cell Biology & Anatomy, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Olson Center for Women’s Health, Pediatrics, and Internal Medicine, UNMC; VA Medical Center, Omaha, NE; Departments of Animal Science, and Statistics, UNL; Departments of Biomedical Sciences, Pharmacology, and Internal Medicine, Creighton University, Omaha, NE; Department of Biology, UNK; U.S.D.A. Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, NE; Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS; Vascular Biology Center, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA; Department of Animal Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; Center for Conservation & Research, Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, NE; Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN; Sygen International, Franklin, KY; Archer Daniels Midland Co.; Wyeth Research, Philadelphia, PA.

The meeting concluded at 4:00 pm with a tour of the new research facilities in the Durham Research Center.

Nebraska Physiological Society Predoctoral Student Winner, Lynn Roy, Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience University of Nebraska Medical Center.	Nebraska Physiological Society Postdoctoral Fellow Winner Tarek Mousa, (right) Irving H. Zucker, (left) mentor Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Harold Schultz, Secretary/Treasurer
 

Award-winning Cover for Physiological Reviews

The APS is happy to announce that the cover illustration for the July 2005 issue of Physiological Reviews received the Award of Excellence in the Professional Editorial Category in the Salon Exhibition at the 60th Annual Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) meeting on July 31, 2005.
Scott Weldon, the Supervisor of medical illustrators in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery of Baylor College of Medicine, has been working with Susan Hamilton, Editor of the Journal, since late 2004 to provide illustrations for the covers of PRV that demonstrate a physiological concept from one of the articles in that issue. His first cover appeared January 2005.

In discussing his pleasure at receiving this award, Weldon said, “This award is particularly special because the editorial category is always highly competitive.”

“We are pleased to see Scott recognized for his beautiful illustrations and for this kind of interest to be shown in PRV,” stated Margaret Reich, APS’s Director of Publications.

FASEB Journal Announces New Editor, Gerald Weissmann

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has announced that Gerald Weissmann will become Editor in Chief of The FASEB Journal on October 1, 2005.

Weissmann is professor of medicine and director of the Biotechnology Study Center at
the New York University School of Medicine. Vincent T. Marchesi, who has served as Editor in Chief for the past 10 years, will act as co-editor through the end of the year to provide an effective transition of leadership. Weissmann stated he wants to “make The FASEB Journal a new voice for science, a journal that serves as a lively stimulus to new thought.” To this end, the journal will start to feature essays, opinion pieces, reviews, and editorials. The first op-ed will
speak on the facts of evolution.

Weissmann graduated from NYU College of Medicine in 1954. He has received the Lila Gruber Award for Cancer Research, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Allesandro Robecchi and Paul Klemperer awards for inflammation research, and the Distinguished Investigator Award of the American College of Rheumatology. He was a co-founder and director of The Liposome Company during 1982-2000. A master and past president of the American College of Rheumatology and a past president of the Harvey Society, Weissmann also was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the New York Academy of Medicine. He is a trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass., and is on the Advisory Board of the Ellison Medical Foundation.

“Gerry is an inspired choice who will bring many creative ideas to the journal,” said FASEB Chief Executive Officer Frederick Rickles. “I have known him personally and professionally for more than 20 years and have great respect for him as a scientist, teacher, innovator, humanist, and popular author. He is a scholar in the true sense of the word, with wide-ranging interests and talents.”

FASEB is composed of 23 societies with more than 65,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. FASEB’s mission is to enhance the ability of biomedical and life scientists to improve—through their research—the health, well-being and productivity of all people. FASEB serves the interests of these scientists in those areas related to public policy, facilitates coalition activities among Member Societies and disseminates information on biological research through scientific conferences and publications.
 

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