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The epilogue of the XXXV
International Congress of Physiological Sciences was a concert with the
symphonic suite “Body Notes” about human physiology composed by the
physiologist Dr. Hector Rasgado-Flores. This suite is composed of 13
movements grouped in six sections: I. “Negentropy;” II. “Pumping Iron;” III.
“Movement’s Movement;” IV. “Right Connections;” V. “Moody Mood;” VI.
“Apoptosis.”
The piece of music describes many aspects of body functions and movements,
such as heart “beating,” “loving,” “muscle working,” “moods,” which are
influenced by our hormones as well as programming of cells for an orderly
well controlled life cycle at the end of which they die, called “Apoptosis,”
The symphony reminded me of our efforts, discussions, fights we went
through, as we tried to establish the program for the XXXV International
Congress in San Diego 2005. But let me start at the beginning.
In 1997, on the occasion of the Congress of the International Union of
Physiological Sciences (IUPS) in St. Petersburg, the invitation of the US
National Academy of Sciences to hold the IUPS 2005 Congress in the United
States of America was accepted by the General Assembly of IUPS. The new idea
that the Congress should be held in conjunction with the Experimental
Biology meeting of the Federation of American Societies caused concern and
long discussions in the IUPS council. We were afraid of losing our identity
and being overwhelmed by the American Scientists.
However, being used to experimenting and risk-taking, at the Christchurch
Congress in 2001, the IUPS General Assembly accepted the US invitation to
hold the IUPS congress in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2005
Meeting in San Diego. At that time there were still concerns that it would
be very difficult and would require enormous efforts to highlight
sufficiently the central topics of physiology and to make them recognizable
to the participants before they spread out in the totality of biological
sciences. The constant fight against the increase in “scientific entropy” is
a central issue in physiology as was emphasized by Rasgado-Flores when he
entitled the first movement of his suite “Negentropy.” But did this justify
to merge physiology with the abundance of other biological sciences?
The IUPS 2005 National Organizing Committee (NOC) represented by Shu Chien,
chair of NOC, put together several committees to coordinate the planning for
the Congress 2005. Shu Chien spread a sense of confidence that every thing
would succeed. The dinner given by him and Shu’s wife K.C. was in an
atmosphere of anticipation of pleasure, of inspiration and friendship. Each
guest brought a CD of a typical music piece from his/her country, which was
played during the evening and which brought up a lovely touch of connection.
IUPS has already eight standing commissions and two committees with main
topic groups in different areas of physiology. The chair persons of these
commissions together with members of the US committees formed the
International Scientific Programming Committee (ISPC) together with the US
Scientific Programming committee (USSPC) chaired by Walter Boron/USA and
co-chaired by Ole Petersen/Great Britain.
It was the goal to create a program that represented all important areas of
physiology and also that physiologists from around the world, respecting
countries and gender were appropiately represented in a good balance.
It turned out that the cooperation between USSPC and ISPC was extremely
effective. For each topic, such as “Nervous System and Neural Control,” or
“Circulation and Cardiovascular,” the program representatives of both the
ISCP and the USSCP worked together. In the IUPS commission “Secretion and
Absorption,” chaired by myself, the aspects of “Epithelial transport” were
discussed with the Chairperson David Cook/Australia of the subsection
“epithelial” and with the advisors of this section and with Thomas Kleyman/USA,
or for the subsection “renal” with François Verrey/Switzerland and advisors
of this subsection for ISPC and with Curt Sigmund/USA, chair of the APS
joint program committee and Mathew Breyer/USA for the USSCP committee.
We had a very good cooperation with Hannah Carey/USA from USSCP. We were in
constant Email contact exchanging ideas and suggestions between continents.
Similarly François Verry/Switzerland (chair for the IUPS subsection “renal”)
was in constant contact with Curt Sigmund/USA for USSPC.
The new idea of the scientific programming committees, represented by its
president, Walter Boron, was to subdivide the various aspects of life
sciences into well defined subgroups, which were called “tracks” that would
carry a particular topic. Thus, taking my commission “Secretion and
Absorption” with the subsection “epithelial” as an example, we had symposia
and featured topics on basic questions on: “Molecular Mechanisms of
Transporter Regulation;” “Epithelial Genomics, Proteomics and Genetic
Models;” “Epithelial Polarity: Development to Disease;” “The Molecular Basis
of Epithelial Diseases;” up to “PDZ Domain Scaffolding Proteins and their
Functions in Polarized Cells” and finally whole cell function in “Epithelial
Cells and their Neighbors.”
In addition, distinguished lectures such as the Horace Davenport
Distinguished Lectureship on “The Ins and Outs of Membrane Traffic in
Polarized Cells,” by Ann Hubbard/John Hopkins University, USA or the Robert
Pitts Lecture “Signaling Across the Juxtaglomerular Apparatus-Message and
Messengers,” by Juergen Schnermann/NIDDK, NIH, USA were presented and also
given by recipients of the Nobel Prize including Peter Agre, the Finn
Lecturer, as well as Eric Kandel and Erwin Neher.
Several meetings with USSPC and ISPC to “brainstorm” and build up an
outstanding program took place in the two years before the Congress.
The chairman, Walter Boron, guided both USSPC and ISPC with high sensitivity
and respect for the ideas of each member through these meetings.
Finally, I can say that because of the conjunction of EB and IUPS, a program
of highest quality was established, including all important areas and hot
topics of physiology with a transparent and comprehensible organization,
which made it easy to follow points of interest day by day and to hear talks
from the best scientists from throughout the world.
The IV section of the suite by Rasgado-Flores, entitled “Right Connections,”
describes the enormous complexity of neuronal and hormonal interactions in
the human body. It also can be interpreted to mean the important task of
meetings like this congress to provide a forum for young scientists to
present their work, to get into talks with senior scientists and to make
connections, which may promote their career. These many scientists, most of
which were not invited speakers, presented their contribution in form of
posters. This is inevitable and so it was also inevitable that the
exhibition hall had a length of almost half a mile, leading to the practical
consequence, that even the best posters got drowned in these floods of
others. Let´s hope that the talents and inspiration of our younger
colleagues will not end up like the last movement of the symphonic suite,
which was entitled “Apoptosis.” However, this movement of the suite ends
with a sense of peaceful acceptance of completing the life cycle and at the
same time living forever.
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| Martin Frank presents
flowers to Hector Rasgado-Flores in appreciation of his efforts to
compose Body Notes. |
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| IUPS President Allen W.
Cowley addresses the Congress. |
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