Membership
Special Interest Groups
Basic Science
Meeting Minutes
The basic science SIG held its annual business meeting at the annual meeting in San Antonio, TEXAS. Attendance of basic scientists this year was lower than usual, likely due to the proximity to the Cayman Island meeting. Next year the meeting will be held in Washington DC and we expect a stronger attendance of basic scientists.
News from the SIG. We now have a website for the SIG. We have written a mission statement and objectives for the SIG. We need a volunteer to take over adding things to the website and to keep track of this site regularly. There were no volunteers at the meeting but the SIG chairs would welcome input.
The annual basic science dinner was a big success with great attendance and an interactive discussion. Thanks to the speakers (Bob Yezierski, Jeff Mogil, Todd Vanderah) and all who were in attendance for the fun and entertaining evening.
We also confirmed that there will be a SIG liaison appointed to Scientific Program Committee every year. This is in addition to the basic science slots already there. The liaisons job will therefore be responsible for expressing the interests of the SIG. Carolyn Fairbanks will serve in this role for 2007.
The Program Committee 2006 thanked all those who submitted and presented at this years annual meeting.
The Program Committee for 2007 includes a SIG representative Carolyn Fairbanks, Kathleen Sluka, Bob Yezierski, Luc Jasmin, Tim Brennan, and Linda Porter. We are actively seeking workshops from the basic science community and request that when you submit you also let one of us know so we can speak to the proposal when it comes up for review.
The Board investigated several options regarding the schedule of the meeting in conjunction with the Society for Neuroscience. Moving the meeting to the fall was not feasible since APS has grown large enough that it now needs to hold its meeting in a convention center. Further SFN ties up all hotel rooms and convention center space 10 to 11 days before the meeting. Therefore APS would have to use nearby cities. It turns out that they could not find convention center space within 500 miles of the SFN meetings and thus would entail another plane flight anyway. The final decision was to leave the meeting in the spring focusing on the month of May for the meeting. This meeting would not coincide with Spring Pain, Easter or Passover.
The Board has put together a strategic plan and this includes as its number one priority to increase funding and awareness of pain research. The steps for this are being worked out. However, last December members of the APS met with the Pain Consortium at APS.
Ideas for next year's basic science dinner were discussed. Topics proposed included a discussion of the culture of science, proteomics, compelling hypothesis with minimal/no evidence.
General concerns from the SIG members in attendance were discussed and the SIG chairs said they would relay this information on to appropriate parties.
Kathleen Sluka's position as SIG co-chair was replaced by Todd Vanderah, University of Arizona by a unanimous vote of those in attendance. Congratulations to Todd. The current co-chairs are now Carolyn Fairbanks and Todd Vanderah.
Thanks to the New Investigators who presented in the Basic Science Interest Group Data Blitz:
Luda Diachenko, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Biology
School of Dentistry, University of North Carolina Chapel HillJin Y. Ro, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland Dental SchoolZaijie Jim Wang, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutics
University of Illinois at Chicago
Dept. of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Respectively submitted by,
Kathleen Sluka
Carolyn Fairbanks