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APS News |
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Council Meets in Bethesda |
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The APS summer Council meeting was held in
Bethesda, MD, July 6-8, 2006. 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.
They also contributed ideas of ways to advance the Society through future
Strategic Plan initiatives. These committee reports are published in this
issue of The Physiologist. The Animal Care and Experimentation Committee (ACE) reported that the Resource Book for the Design of Animal Exercise Protocols was published in February 2006. In January 2005, APS convened a working group to discuss regulatory issues related to pain and distress. One of the main themes that emerged was the need for our regulatory system to treat pain and distress as distinct entities. Those discussions impacted NIH’s decision to ask ILAR to undertake an update of its 1992 report on recognition and alleviation of pain and distress in laboratory animals in two separate reports. The first part of the update will deal with distress and will be followed later by a report on pain. In April 2006, the ILAR committee began its fact finding with a Workshop on Recognition of Distress in Laboratory Animals. Former ACE Chair J.R. Haywood was invited to make comments about the scientific challenges in developing a science-based definition of when stress becomes distress, recognizing distress in laboratory animals, and validating assessments of distress in laboratory animals. At the workshop, the HSUS announced it will publish its own pain and distress report as part of its Project 2020 to eliminate pain and distress in laboratory animals by that year. The Committee also reported that APS is partnering with States United for Biomedical Research (SUBR) in a new outreach program. SUBR is a consortium of state and regional associations that promote public support for biomedical research and the use of animals in research. The APS/SUBR Partnership is a pilot program to design, test and implement a physiologist speaker/public outreach project that includes public information on the humane use of animals in research, education and testing. The Committee will be presenting a symposium at EB 2007 entitled “Alternatives Revisited: Scientific Perspectives.” Issues relating to study design, and the notion that good science often requires an interplay rather than a substitution of animal and non-animal models will be discussed. The Communications Committee reported that the Communications Office produced 30 press releases based on scientific papers appearing in nine journals. That was an increase of 50% over last year. The Committee reported that releases were written, for the first time in several years, on papers from the Journal of Neurophysiology, AJP-Cell and AJP-Renal. The Committee reported that it has developed a “Calendar of Physiology” that will highlight the physiological connections to recurring holidays, events, traditions, seasons, etc. that can be used in a variety of ways for public communication. One of the first implementations of this “Calendar of Physiology” occurred last February when the APS Communications Office initiated a program aimed at linking “Groundhog Day” (Feb. 2) to physiology and making APS the primary source of information for the media. The Committee organized, in conjunction with the Public Affairs Committee, a Communications Symposium at EB ‘06 entitled “Ground-Floor Communications: Creating a Buzz about Science through Community and Constituency Outreach.” The purpose of the workshop was to help physiologists be advocates for their own work, emphasize the value of science, and help them speak on various topics, including evolution, stem cell research and the use of animals in research. All the PowerPoint presentations from the EB ‘06 Workshop are available online at: http://www.the-aps.org/press/news/EB06Comms-PAsymp. The Communications Committee will be presenting another workshop at EB ‘07. The Committee has tentatively scheduled two nationally recognized journalism “headliners” to speak at the workshop—Joe Palca of National Public Radio and Rick Weiss of the Washington Post. The Education Committee reported that it is developing live, web, and CD-ROM short courses that focus on critical professional skills areas. Each course will include a strong focus on the interaction of racial/ethnic background and culture with the development of these skills. Students who complete the course(s) will: improve their performance in specific professional skills areas; increase their understanding of how these skills can impact career opportunities and advancement in biomedicine; increase their understanding of how diversity issues, especially cultural influences and background experiences, can interact with the development of professional skills targeted by the course; and increase their knowledge of resources and materials that can further assist in their development of these key professional skills. The Education Office developed materials for a live short course focused on writing and reviewing for journals. The materials’ development was facilitated by contributions from previous Women in Physiology Committee EB workshops and from individual members. Two live short courses were held in 2006 to field test the materials. Numerous APS members were speakers and small group leaders. The short courses also included participants and group leaders from other biomedical research societies (American Society for Microbiology, Society for Neuroscience, and Society for Developmental Biology). The web-based version of the workshop should be available by early 2007. The Committee sponsored a Refresher Course at EB06 entitled “Gender Differences in Physiology.” In 2007, the EB Refresher Course will restart the cycle of major topics, with gastrointestinal physiology as the focus. The Liaison with Industry Committee sponsored its fifth symposium at EB ‘06 entitled “Advances in Ion Channel Physiology.” The symposium included topics on ion channels in pain pathways, cardiac arrhythmias, therapeutic agent to rescue the mutant cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) function, and therapeutic potential of positive allosteric modulators of glutamate AMPA receptors. The Committee will be sponsoring the “Stem Cells in Physiology and Drug Discovery” workshop at EB ‘07. The Publications Committee reported that they are continuing to respond to the open access movement. In response to the NIH policy requesting that authors submit their accepted manuscripts to the NIH database for archiving and public dissemination, the Committee has added 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. The Publications Committee believes that this decision will help APS authors meet the perceived requirement of the NIH while still preserving APS’ free-access policy (all content of APS journals is free on the journal web site 12 months after publication). The Committee also reported that the Journal Impact Factors made a strong showing again in 2005; and that journal submissions were up 5% across all journals in 2005. The Public Affairs Committee reported that APS has joined a new coalition of scientific societies to support a research and polling initiative that will investigate the public’s views on the teaching of evolution in public schools. The goal of this coalition is to better understand how societies can be advocates for the teaching of evolution, which serves as a foundation for understanding biological principles. The coalition includes a diverse group of organizations such as FASEB, the American Chemical Society, the National Academies of Science, and the American Physical Society. The Public Affairs Committee is planning a symposium at EB ‘07 entitled “Human Subject Research Ethics: Issues for Going from Bench to Bedside.” Planning is also underway for a joint public affairs symposium involving all the societies participating in EB ‘07. The symposium will feature NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni and former Congressman John Porter. The discussion will focus on the FY 2008 NIH budget and how scientists can become advocates for research. The Trainee Advisory Committee (TAC) reported that the first Trainee Symposium was held at EB ‘06 entitled “Transitioning from Postdoc to Jr. Faculty: Surviving the Initial Years.” The session was very well attended and the presentations received very high ratings from the participants. The 2007 Trainee Symposium will be titled “Multiple Career Paths for a Physiologist: Understand Your Options and How to Get There.” The Women in Physiology Committee reported that the third Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award was presented to L. Gabriel Navar, Tulane University School of Medicine. Navar gave a 30-minute lecture on mentoring entitled “From Mentee to Mentor: Lessons Learned Along the Way.” At EB ‘06, the Women in Physiology Committee co-sponsored a workshop with the ASPET Committee on Women in Pharmacology entitled “Mastering the Juggling Act: Laboratory, Life, and Leadership Roles.” The workshop was designed to inform young physiologists how to deal with many of the issues they will face balancing research, teaching, service activities, job and family, and dual careers. This session was the first time that an audio recording was simultaneously made with the PowerPoint presentations and both will be made available as a resource on the APS website. The Women in Physiology and ASPET Women in Pharmacology Committees will co-sponsor a mentoring workshop for EB ‘07 in Washington, DC. The focus of the workshop will be “Being Heard: The Microinequities That Tilt the Playing Field,” with specific topics include being heard as students and postdocs, being heard as junior faculty, and being recognized as senior faculty. The target audience is young scientists of both genders interested in learning skills for their future/current careers. The workshop also offers a venue for networking between junior and senior scientists. Reports from the Awards, Careers, Committee on Committees, Finance, International Physiology, Joint Program, Long Range Planning, Membership, Perkins Memorial Fellowship, Porter Physiology Development, Section Advisory, and Senior Physiologists Committees were also presented to Council. |
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