Two Major Scientific Meetings Slated Next Week

Two major scientific meetings will be taking place next week--one marked by controversy, the other by change. Denver is the site of the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), set for March 28-April 2. ACS officials say they are unfazed by a boycott of the state of Colorado by gay-rights activists and others angry about the passage in November of Amendment 2, an amendment to the state constitution banning local antidiscrimination laws for homosexuals. At press time, the boycott had "not materially affected our attendance yet," according to Christine Pruitt of the society's meetings office, although she acknowledges receipt of several letters from people saying they will not be coming to the meeting because of its location. About 10,000 to 12,000 people generally attend ACS's spring and fall meetings, society officials say. The more than 10,000 expected attendees at the conference March 28 to April 1 will encounter more than 5,000 scientific reports, as well as about 600 exhibits from more than 379 companies. Meeting Highlight Workshop, "Science Illiteracy: Impact on Research and What Can Be Done." Speakers will discuss the relationship between basic science knowledge and attitudes toward the use of animals in research, among other topics. (Sunday, March 28, 2 P.M., Convention Center rooms 5, 7, and 9) Public Affairs Symposium, "Science at the Crossroads: Is Basic Research in Trouble?" Speakers will discuss changes in federal support for basic science. (Monday, March 29, 11:30 A.M., Convention Center room 41/42) Meanwhile, Experimental Biology 93 is slated for March 28-April 1 in New Orleans. The conference--bringing together four of the nine societies that make up the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), as well as five "guest" societies--has adopted the new name this year; it will no longer be known as "the FASEB meeting." FASEB president Shu Chien, a professor of bioengineering and medicine at the University of California, San Diego, says that the name change is in line with the federation's mission to "bring the societies together for common goals and recruit new societies." Chien says, "One advantage of a large meeting is that it brings everyone together. But the downside is that people don't feel they can really go to the sessions they want to-- there's too many things going on. With nine societies meeting together, it's almost impossible." Thus, he says, "to make it mandatory [for constituent societies] to go to the FASEB meeting would make it difficult for them to join the federation." In anticipation of such concerns, Chien says, "we adopted this more flexible approach: All member societies can hold their own meetings, and we get some to meet together." The change in the conference's name, he says, came about because "the societies that decide to meet together may not be even half of the federation, so it's not right to call it `the FASEB meeting.' " Also new for the experimental biology meeting this year is the format for presentation of papers, which are now being organized according to predetermined "themes." More than 10,000 scientists are expected to attend ACS's 205th national meeting in Denver March 28-April 2. Approximately 4,800 papers and more than 650 technical sessions are scheduled. Meeting Highlights Presidential Event, "Health Awareness Fair." Featured will be aerobics instruction, gym equipment, diagnostic testing, and healthful snacks. (Sunday, March 28, 7 P.M., Convention Center) Media Relations Training Session. Program will guide scientists in handling media interviews. (Sunday, March 28, time to be announced, Gold Room/Cripple Creek Room, Brown Palace Hotel) ACS is trying something new at its meetings this year, too, in an effort to accommodate its members. In response to complaints of poor attendance at Friday-morning events, the spring meeting will include more programs on Sunday instead. One of these Sunday special events, entitled "What Works: Chemists in the Classroom," is aimed at researchers who are not professional educators. Visiting a classroom can be daunting, says program chairman Robert Silberman, a professor of chemistry at the State University of New York, Cortland. "Suddenly, you find yourself faced with little kids, and you've planned this elaborate, intricate experiment that doesn't work" because the children can't comprehend it, he explains. "If [the program] works out, we'll bring it to future meetings," Silberman says. "We hope for several hundred people to show up for this." He says he can't predict how the Colorado boycott will affect his program. ACS officials cite difficulties in getting out of contracts and finding sufficiently large alternative sites as reasons they are not considering moving the meeting from Colorado. Yet a change in conference locale is not unprecedented for the society. In 1980, ACS moved the fall meeting from San Francisco to Las Vegas in order to get away from a hotel workers' strike. Society officers say they don't expect much outcry this time around. "I don't think [the boycott] is going to affect the success of a convention as big as 10,000 people," says Nina McClelland, president of NSF International Inc., a private testing lab in Ann Arbor, Mich., and chairwoman of ACS's meetings and expositions committee. "Most chemists think [such considerations are] irrelevant to the science. That's got to change," says Shane Que Hee, an environmental and industrial hygiene chemist at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health. Que Hee is boycotting the Denver meeting. "I was thinking of going along and maybe even presenting papers," he says. "But as soon as I heard about the boycott, I decided I wouldn't go." The American Association of Immunologists (AAI), a FASEB constituent that is planning its own separate annual meeting in Denver May 21-25, is facing a similar problem. In the January edition of the AAI Newsletter, the association placed a notice reading: "AAI opposes [Amendment 2].... While we understand the concern...cancellation of the meeting would result in legal action against AAI by hotels and other service organizations with which we have signed contracts.... The Council will not consider making any future contractual commitments in Colorado until the amendment is overturned." "I was very happy to see that notice," says Rochelle Diamond, chairwoman of the Pasadena, Calif.- based National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals. "At least AAI is being sensitive and are making a statement about how they feel. I have not seen ACS do anything like that." The January 18 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, in which the 27- page preliminary program for the ACS meeting appeared, did not address such concerns. The more than 10,000 attendees at Experimental Biology 93 will be contending with a new method of organization of the sessions. Papers and symposia will be arranged in eight thematic topics, selected by the meeting's program committee. FASEB president Chien says the themes selected for the meeting were "areas of mutual interest to the four societies that will be at the meeting--in particular, areas that cross the disciplines." But the new theme format has created "some mild confusion" among presenters, says David Pollack, a research investigator at Abbott Laboratories' pharmaceutical products division in Abbott Park, Ill., who has attended FASEB meetings in the past and will be going to Experimental Biology 93. Among the papers Pollack's group at Abbott will be presenting is one on endothelin. But, after perusing the program, he says, he found that "there's no topic in there that says `endothelin'--yet I know there's going to be a lot of papers on endothelin. They don't have the familiar sections, and it's hard to tell which session is going to be the one that will have similar papers. The fear is to be misplaced and get lost--to have your session in another building [away from related presentations], and nobody will come to it." Lansing Taylor, director of the Center for Light Microscope Imaging and Biotechnology at Carnegie Mellon University and an invited speaker at the meeting, says that figuring out where to find programs of interest "has always been a problem" at FASEB events. Because of the many societies participating, the meeting is "so large, it's difficult," says Taylor, who doesn't think the reorganization will decrease the confusion. "With all these opportunities, there's a bit of hassle. If you want to really figure out what to do, you have to invest a little time." FASEB offers a computerized service to help meeting attendes navigate their way through the abstracts. The service allows keyword searches of meeting programs to assist in creating an itinerary. The American Physiological Society (APS), one of the FASEB constituents convening in New Orleans, will be inaugurating a mentoring program at the meeting. A mentoring workshop is scheduled for Sunday, March 28. "Young women, especially junior faculty, don't know how to go about advancing their careers," says Hannah Carey, an assistant professor in the department of comparative biosciences at the University of Wisconsin's School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison. A mentor, says Carey, chairwoman of the APS Women in Physiology Committee, can help a young scientist by "being a listening ear, [providing] feedback on problems that may come up- -especially if the mentor has experienced these problems; by providing support and discussion of what it takes to stay in science, such as dealing with child care and balancing family and career; and by helping with the basics of being a scientist-- giving advice on funding opportunities, publishing opportunities, and networking."

Two Major Scientific Meetings Slated Next Week

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