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 greater public good. 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 staff of AIBS SPARS work with AIBS IT staff to 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 include work for the National Council for Science and the Environment, for the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, for the Kansas University Medical Research Institute, and for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Among its largest projects at the moment, AIBS SPARS is tasked by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command to provide independent peer review of proposals submitted to the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder/Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program in Fall 2007. The PTSD/TBI Research Program was established in FY07 to promote research that will advance the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of military-relevant PTSD and TBI. The Program focuses its funding on innovative projects that have the potential to make a significant impact on improving the function, wellness, and overall quality of life for military Service members as well as their caregivers, families, and the American Public.

The FY07 PTSD/TBI Research Program challenges the scientific community to design innovative research that will foster new directions for, address neglected issues in, and bring new investigators into the fields of military-relevant PTSD- and TBI-focused research. Proposals from investigators within the military Services and proposals involving multidisciplinary collaborations among academia, industry, the military Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other Federal Government agencies are highly encouraged. Though the Program supports groundbreaking research, all projects must demonstrate solid judgment and rationale.

The FY07 TBI appropriation is $150M. The TBI Concept Award mechanism is being offered for the first time in FY07.

For this PTSD/TBI Program, AIBS SPARS is managing the review of more than 1,000 research proposals, including convening at least 24 peer review panels this fall/winter in the DC Metropolitan area, as well as conducting numerous reviews using a custom online application developed by the AIBS IT Department. For more information, contact the SPARS Director, Scott Glisson, sglisson@aibs.org

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(UPDATE: See also the postings at the National Center for Science Education and Kent Holsinger's blog, Uncommon Ground)

(I am quoting heavily here from communications from Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU))

Encouraging news this week concerning the success of a collaborative effort by AU and more than 30 other organizations, including AIBS and some of its member societies, to press for the removal of a provision in a federal appropriations bill that would have directed $100,000 in federal funds to a Louisiana group that promotes creationism in the science classroom.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) had inserted the earmark into the Appropriations Committee's report on a bill allocating money for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. Sen. Vitter wanted to designate $100,000 to the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) "to develop a plan to promote better science education."

In a letter to every member of the Senate, the AU-led group argued against the funding on constitutional grounds. The letter's signatories came from across the scientific, educational, civil liberties and religious communities, including the American Association of School Administrators, the American Association of University Women, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, the Herpetologist's League, the National Center for Science Education, the National Education Association, the National Science Teachers Association, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Union for Reform Judaism.

Sen. Vitter has now requested that the earmark be removed. On the floor of the Senate, the Louisiana Republican insisted that the money was not designed to promote creationism and blamed the controversy on groups promoting "hysterics."

"This is great news for the children of Louisiana," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "The federal courts have repeatedly held that teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional."

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(UPDATE: The Oct 15th AIBS Public Policy Report also carries a story on the Student Pugwash USA survey.)

I'm pleased to note here AIBS's and COPUS's association with Student Pugwash USA, a DC-based nonprofit with a mission to prepare science, technology and policy students to make social responsibility a guiding focus of their academic and professional endeavors. I had the pleasure of giving a lunch-hour talk to their group a few months ago, along with Erika Shugart, Deputy Director of the Koshland Science Museum, National Academy of Sciences.

SPUSA encourages young people to:

• Examine the societal impacts of science and technology
• Create open and objective forums for debate
• Foster the exchange of ideas among diverse communities
• Explore solutions to current dilemmas in science and technology
• Cultivate the analytical skills needed to address future challenges

Indeed, the SPUSA pledge program embodying these principles was initiated in response to the awarding of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize to the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs and Sir Joseph Rotblat, a founding member of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.

Notable among SPUSA's current activities is their development of a web-based 2008 Science & Tech Policy Guide for the upcoming U.S. presidential elections to enable students to make informed choices and express their views on critical science policy issues. Leading up to the publication of the guide, Student Pugwash USA is conducting a survey of 18-25 year olds on Facebook to gather data on attitudes toward science policy issues. I encourage broad participation in this online survey so as to help inform the creation of the policy guide.

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

2007 is the 60th year of AIBS's creation as an umbrella organization to advance education, research, and professional interests in the biological sciences. From those heady days after WWII, some of the 11 founding societies (American Physiological Society, American Society for Horticultural Science, American Society of Plant Physiologists, American Society of Zoologists, Botanical Society of America, Genetics Society of America, Limnological Society of America, Mycological Society of America, Poultry Science Association of America , Society for the Development of Growth, Society of American Bacteriologists) are still with AIBS, some have lapsed, some have changed their names, and some no longer exist.

AIBS has since grown to almost 200 member societies and organizations while remaining remarkably faithful to its original purpose, as stated in Article II of the AIBS Constitution:

"The purposes of the Institute shall be the advancement of the biological sciences and their applications to human welfare, and to foster and encourage research and education in the biological sciences, including the medical, environmental, and agricultural sciences. To serve these purposes, the Institute will assist societies, other organizations, and biologists in such matters of common concern as can be dealt with more effectively by united action; hold and sponsor scientific meetings; cooperate with local, national, and international organizations concerned with the biological sciences; provide a voice for biologists in the public forum; promote unity and effectiveness of effort among all those who are devoting themselves to the biological sciences and their applications; and foster the relations of the biological sciences to other sciences, to the arts and industries, and to the public good."

The AIBS website, the pages of BioScience, and many other venues document our successes, along with our challenges and near misses (25th [1972] and 50th [1997] anniversary historical reviews of AIBS are online in the About AIBS section, as is a 2004 booklet). None of us would say that AIBS is "there" yet. Much has been accomplished by many good people's hard work and collaborations over the years, but there's always more to be done.

In this regard, we can contrast the iconic AIBS with the actual AIBS. The iconic AIBS embodies biologists' aspirations of what a national umbrella organization for U.S. biologists can, should, and ought to do. The actual AIBS is the members, board directors, and staff in the here and now, always aiming, with the resources and funds in hand, to live up to and honor their predecessors' accomplishments, the organizations's founding purposes, and AIBS members' expectations (so please keep sending those dues payments!).

Success on this front is a victory for all and the power of we. Anything less than success means that, together, we roll up our sleeves a little bit higher and redouble our efforts as we think about how future generations of biologists will judge our work.

Posted by Richard O'Grady at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)