AIBS Executive Director's Weekly Blog

Through its publications, meetings, and programs in support of research as well as education, AIBS has a long and distinguished history of serving the biological sciences community (our 60th anniversary is coming up in 2007). One part of this service of which we are especially proud is the Scientific Peer Advisory and Review Services division (AIBS SPARS), established in the 1960s to provide contracted peer review and related scientific services to external grantmaking bodies. We believe it is crucial that decision makers and policy leaders in society have access to the most reliable scientific information and advice available, and we act on this belief by serving as an independent, impartial peer review and scientific support organization.

Occupying about 10,000 square feet of office space in Reston Virginia, on the way to Dulles Airport, the 20 or more dedicated staff of AIBS SPARS convene peer review panels of outside experts and provide scientific management/program review, meeting facilitation, and IT services to a diverse client base, including agencies of the U.S. government, private foundations, and non-profit organizations. With decades of activities that have covered virtually every aspect of the biological sciences, AIBS SPARS's recent projects, listed here in SPARS News, include work for the National Council for Science and the Environment on wildlife habitat policy programs; for the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment on non-native species programs; for the Kansas University Medical Research Institute on cell and developmental biology programs; and for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation on medical research programs.

Just last week, 10 -14 July 2006, the staff of AIBS SPARS and the staff of the AIBS Information Technology division completed a peer-review project of staggering dimensions on behalf of the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) and Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP): AIBS convened 20 peer review panels, involving more than 200 nationally recognized scientists, to review 646 proposals submitted by scientists in response to the Fiscal Year 2006 (FY06) Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) supplement. The federal research funding available through this supplement exceeds $50,000,000. The topic areas on which AIBS coordinated the peer review included:

Alcoholism research;
Antibiotic resistance;
Autism;
Autoimmune diseases such as Scleroderma and Sjogren's Syndrome;
Blood-related cancer research such as Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Multiple Myeloma;
Childhood asthma;
Chronic pain and fatigue research;
Childhood cancer research;
Diabetes research;
Drug abuse;
Duchenne's disease research;
Efficacy and subsequent clinical guidelines for the use of probenecid or other drugs to decrease dosage requirements;
Eye and vision research;
Fibromyalgia;
Human performance optimization;
Interstitial Cystitis Syndrome;
Kidney cancer research;
Lupus research;
Mental health resiliency;
Neurotoxicity of mefloquine;
Oseltamivir phosphate for the treatment of influenza;
Osteoporosis and bone-related diseases;
Paget's Disease;
Polycystic Kidney Disease;
Post Traumatic Stress Disorders;
Proteomics;
Pulmonary hypertension;
Radio-protectants;
Rehabilitation, face and/or eye injury;
Respiratory infection including associated respiratory disease;
Social work research.

Contact: AIBS SPARS Director Scott Glisson, sglisson@aibs.org

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just returned from a two-day meeting in Durham NC at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, a research center that opened in December 2004 with NSF funding. I was joined there by various AIBS Board members, AIBS staff members, and NESCent's Evolution Education Working Group, which has a membership of about two dozen of the top evolution educators in the country. We met with NESCent leaders and the staff of its Education and Outreach division.

AIBS has a sub-contract with NESCent to help it coordinate education and outreach activities with its research mission, including staffing and co-sponsorship of an evolution symposium each fall at the annual meeting of the National Association of Biology Teachers. We published a BioScience interview with NESCent's Director, Kathleen Smith, in June 2006. The Evolution Education Working Group made great progress at its meeting this week, which was its first meeting, and has identified at least one sub-topic to work on moving forward: effective pedagogy for evolution. Contact: NESCent Education and Outreach Program Manager Kristin Jenkins, kjenkins@nescent.org

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The AIBS Public Policy Office (PPO) reorganized in 2003 with additional funding from AIBS member societies and organizations in order to address issues of concern to the membership. That reorganization provided the office with a clearer role within AIBS as more member societies sought assistance with various public policy activities. The broadly defined mission of the office became bridging the communication gap that exists between scientists and policy makers. The PPO works with the AIBS Board and the AIBS Public Policy Review Committee to engage in activities that contribute to (a) a policy-literate biological sciences community and (b) a biology-literate policy community.

The PPO actively seeks contributions from the AIBS membership to help continue building the capacity of the biological sciences community to engage successfully in the public policy process; to inform the development and implementation of effective science policy; to assist AIBS member societies and organizations with the development of their public policy agendas; and to communicate AIBS and AIBS member society and organization policy interests to the public, science community, and policy makers. AIBS is currently looking to add to its PPO staff: a vacancy exists for a Public Policy/Affairs Representative. Contact: AIBS Public Policy Director Robert Gropp, rgropp@aibs.org

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

See you in Albuquerque this October at the NABT evolution symposium!

This fall, 14 October 2006 in Albuquerque, and every fall since 2004, AIBS has been partnering with the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) to put on an all-day evolution symposium at the annual NABT conference. Speakers include both research scientists and educators, pooling their expertise to work toward the common goal of advancing the teaching of evolution in public schools and meeting threats to undermine science education. This symposium series provides educators with timely scientific updates on evolutionary science, produces unique pedagogical resources, and fosters new collaborations between evolution researchers and evolution educators. The 2006 symposium theme is Macroevolution: Evolution above the Species Level.

The first evolution symposium at the NABT conference, in 2004, produced the landmark publication, Evolutionary Science and Society. Publications from subsequent symposia are now being worked on, with planned venues including BioScience and ActionBioscience.org, the latter including some translations into Spanish. Other symposium products include classroom materials and online postings of the slide presentations, which has already been done for the 2005 symposium, Evolution and the Environment. Contact: AIBS Education and Outreach Manager Susan Musante, smusante@aibs.org

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)