At the annual meeting in April, the Council of Division Chairs, the ASPET Council and the Program Committee discussed the process used to create the symposium portion of the annual meeting and whether there were ways to make it more responsive to the pace of scientific discovery and the needs of our members. The one recurring concern was that almost a year and a half elapses between the time ideas for symposia were identified and the actual symposium occurred. While the approved symposia frequently change during this period to accommodate new research, these groups were still concerned that the time frame was too long. Therefore, with concurrence of the Program Committee, ASPET Council recommended shortening the time from initial idea generation to actual symposium to one year. Where this will be most noticeable for the first time to ASPET members will be at the 2013 annual meeting in Boston where your division representatives will be actively soliciting ideas for symposia for the next year’s meeting. There will be discussions at Division Business Meetings. Most likely there will also be discussions in the halls, in the back of session rooms, at mixers, and over drinks in the bar. The Program Committee will meet the last day of the meeting to discuss ideas that the division representatives and at-large members have gathered over the course of the preceding four days, and in the weeks immediately preceding the annual meeting. At this meeting of the Program Committee, the topics for symposia for the 2014 meeting will be decided. Joint divisional sponsorships will be agreed upon. The division representatives to the Program Committee and the at-large members will then go back to the divisions and members and ask them to put together a formal symposium proposal on these topics in the ensuing two months. The Program Committee will then meet again at the end of June to review these formal proposals to make sure that they meet the original goals, that there is scientific breadth in the program, and that the best possible speakers have been identified. From this discussion will emerge the final program of symposia for the 2014 meeting. Organizers will be notified very shortly thereafter if their proposals have been approved as submitted or if there are minor changes that need to be made. We hope that these changes in the programming process will make the annual meeting scientific program more timely and give the members maximum involvement in the process.
Members of the Program Committee
Scott A. Waldman, MD, PhD, Chair
John R. Glowa, PhD – at-large member
Randy A. Hall, PhD – representing Molecular Pharmacology
Jack A. Hinson, PhD – representing Toxicology
Leonard L. Howell, PhD – representing Behavioral Pharmacology
Nancy L. Kanagy, PhD – representing Cardiovascular Pharmacology
Rajasekaran Senthil S. Kumar, MD – representing Pharmacology Education
Robert J. Leadley, Jr, PhD – representing Drug Discovery and Development
Jeffrey Paul, PhD – representing Integrative Sciences, Translational and Clinical Pharmacology
Jill M. Siegfried, PhD - at-large member
Hollie Swanson, PhD – representing Drug Metabolism
Andre Terzic, MDPhD – at-large member
Joann Trejo, PhD – at-large member
Michael W. Wood, PhD – representing Neuropharmacology
Christine K. Carrico, PhD