I’m starting this President’s message with a quiz!!! It’s just one question, but it’s important that everyone knows the answer. The question is: What do prenatal programming and toxicity, perfluorinalkyl acids ,and human relevance of hemangiosarcomas in rodents have in common? [the answer appears at the end of this message].
While you ponder the answer to that question, I want to reflect on events of this fall and focus on several activities of the Society during recent times of uncertainty. The shutdown of the US government had some effect on nearly all of us. Important meetings, study sections, and day-to-day professional discussion and dialog were all furloughed during this time. However, the most significant impact was on our members who are government employees, and we can only hope that these matters are completely behind us. Unfortunately, there were significant deadlines for SOT matters scheduled during this time, particularly for abstract submissions and award nominations.
I want to specifically acknowledge the work of the Scientific Program and Awards Committees for showing remarkable flexibility in modifying deadlines to accommodate member needs. As a quick review, the Awards committee moved deadlines for nominations to the last possible minute—giving them only about 1 week to review all nominations prior to meeting to select award winners. The prestigious Society awards are central to celebrating member accomplishments, and the work of this committee, against their own time limitations, underscores their commitment to this important activity.
The Scientific Program Committee (SPC) also adjusted its review schedule by first delaying the regular abstract submission deadline for its November review meeting and subsequently modifying the “late submission” deadlines and programming for the entire meeting.Importantly, the abstract submission site will reopen on December 2, 2013 and the final abstract submission deadline will be January 6, 2014. With this change, the program schedule will be modified with no “Late Breaking” Abstract session at the 2014 meeting. Rather, regular scientific sessions will be scheduled from Monday through Thursday morning. All abstracts submitted for the January 6 deadline will be added to the regular scientific program and will be presented in relevant topical sessions.
This means that, unlike previous meetings for which only those abstracts submitted for the late-breaking session were presented on Thursday, regular scientific sessions will be scheduled for Thursday morning. In this way, members from all sectors will be presenting papers during this time. We recognize that this is a change from recent years, but it is necessitated by events outside of our control. The size and quality of our meeting makes the work of the SPC challenging under normal circumstances. On behalf of all our members, I want to commend this committee for their willingness to adjust schedules and carefully evaluate all possible options to accommodate the needs of our members.
The matters arising from the US government shutdown did not interfere with one of our major ongoing efforts within SOT Council. Our current strategic plan places considerable emphasis on promoting the recognition and communicating the value of toxicology, and our Communications Committee is charged with leading this outreach to external audiences. During this year, SOT Council has been working closely with the Communications Committee to critically evaluate our efforts in this important area. During these strategic discussions, we have reconfirmed that our overarching goal is to establish SOT and the science of toxicology as a credible, objective, and valuable resource to effectively engage in scientific communication. This effort remains a work in progress, but our critical review has led to several major conclusions that will modify our work in external communications in the future. Some of the major conclusions are:
- The SOT website needs to be a much better resource for communicating toxicology issues and principles. Efforts will be directed to improving the overall design and accessibility of the site, and content will be upgraded to provide good resources to all visitors to the site (including our members).
- SOT is generally in a weak position to respond rapidly to media inquiries. A new strategy and action plan for how such queries can be handled will be developed.
- SOT needs to determine how to use social media in our communication strategy and outreach.
- Communications with legislative bodies is likely to be more effective if focused on very specific matters (such as the current TSCA reform issue). New approaches are needed for this outreach and a process to develop task forces for legislative issues that work with with clearly-defined goals and intended outcomes is currently being considered.
- We must re-evaluate our process for developing issue statements on behalf of the Society. It is generally recognized that such
statements can be an important platform for communication efforts, but we need to streamline the process to ensure that they will be timely and relevant.
The desired outcome from this year of introspection and critical assessment is that it will define a strategically focused plan to enable proactive, consistent, and sustained communication activities that effectively promote the recognition of toxicology. I believe we are well on our way in this regard, and I will continue to share our progress on this important matter with you.
Finally, I return to the opening question. What do prenatal programming and toxicity, perfluorinalkyl acids, and human relevance of hemangiosarcomas in rodents have in common? The answer is that these have been topics of Contemporary Concepts in Toxicology (CCT) meetings. These meetings are designed to provide opportunities to learn about important issues in human and environmental health and to enable dialog around emerging science that is critical to advancing the practice of toxicology. Additionally, CCT meetings allow for scientific discussion and debate along with networking opportunities to enhance the professional engagement of members.
The CCT committee is charged with reviewing meeting proposals, and this group is always looking for timely topics that can advance the integration of emerging science in toxicology (and vice versa) as well as the professional development of our members. The next CCT meeting is scheduled for January 16–17, 2014 and will focus on “FutureTox II: In Vitro Data and In Silico Models for Predictive Toxicology.” Information on this meeting and instructions on how to submit a meeting proposal are found on the SOT website. I encourage you all to give serious thought to topics that can advance this platform of meetings for our global membership.
As 2013 is quickly drawing to a close, I hope that the highlights I share in the messages help to emphasize how SOT can be an integral part of your professional engagement. My next message will come shortly before our 53rd Annual Meeting in Phoenix, and I look forward to seeing you all there.
Lois D. Lehman-McKeeman, PhD, ATS
2013–2014 SOT President