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American Pain Society
4700 W Lake Ave
Glenview, IL 60025
David A. Williams, PhD, Department Editor
Jeffrey S. Mogil, PhD, and Gayle Page, RN DNSc
As a group representing about 5% of the APS membership, the Basic Science Special Interest Group (BSSIG) primarily includes neuroscientists with concentrations in electrophysiology, pharmacology, and anatomy. With the advent of more accessible molecular techniques, more molecular biologists are now studying basic pain mechanisms. The annual Society for Neuroscience meeting is the focal point for most neuroscientists studying pain, and there is an extensive network of both junior and senior basic pain researchers attending the meeting every fall. This meeting is large (with more than 25,000 attendees) and comprehensive.
Although the neuroscience meeting is key, it lacks substantial clinical application, and there lies the importance of APS. Attending the APS annual scientific meeting gives basic scientists an important opportunity for a “reality check” via interaction with clinicians. At the same time, clinicians have an opportunity to gain perspective on emerging laboratory findings and discover possible mechanisms that may account for anecdotal clinical phenomena they observe.
Our SIG believes clinicians and basic scientists need closer contact to keep each other informed and to address our previously abysmal record of bench-to-bedside “translation.” By improving coordination among ourselves, we have the potential to continue to develop and characterize animal models with the greatest relevance to clinically observed pain syndromes.
A continuing challenge for APS’s basic scientists and clinicians is to reverse declining basic scientist attendance at the annual meeting. With the help of APS, the Basic Science SIG enjoys a 2-hour DataBlitz social during the SIG meeting and the Basic Science Research Forum dinner and program. Thanks to the efforts of Linda Sorkin, a training grant from NIH will bring 25 pre- and postdoctoral trainees to the annual meeting every year through 2006. Additionally, Pfizer has been generous in supporting annual meeting attendance of five trainees for several years. Without the participation of basic scientists, the fundamental character of APS will be altered. It is important for APS to retain the input and participation of those at the forefront of pain knowledge.
David A. Williams, PhD, Department Editor, invites APS Special Interest Group (SIG) chairs to submit SIG-related news to daveawms@umich.edu.
Jeffrey S. Mogil, PhD, is the E.P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies at McGill University, Montreal, QC, and cochair of the BSSIG.
Gayle Page, RN, DNSc is associate professor and Independence Foundation chair at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, and cochair of the BSSIG.
