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President’s Message
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President
Michael P. Holsapple |
SOT held another very successful Annual Meeting, March 7–11, 2010, in Salt Lake City, Utah. In spite of concerns about the potential impact of our challenging economy, this year’s meeting, our 49th, attracted nearly 6,200 attendees, which ranks fifth in attendance when compared to all of our annual meetings to date. We saw an increase of 18.5% in the number of sessions presented with over 2,400 scientific presentations. We also had a record number of exhibitors, including an impressive increase in the number of first-time exhibitors. These levels of participation surpassed all of our expectations.
The thematic approach to our Annual Meeting continued to receive considerable praise in 2010. The themes of Cell Signaling, Gene-Environment Interactions, Metabolic Disease, Mitochondrial Basis of Disease, Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century, and Translational Toxicology helped shape the symposia, workshops, roundtables, and informational sessions, as well as our Continuing Education (CE) Program, which also reflected two CE target areas, Biologicals and Cytokine Biology. Our CE Committee put together an excellent series of courses that were well-attended and our Scientific Program Committee (SPC) worked diligently to construct a program that was exciting and that served as an excellent indication of the strength, breadth, and depth of our science. I would like to extend my personal thanks to all of the individual members of the Society who contributed to make the 49th Annual Meeting such a success.
The thematic approach to our Annual Meeting is just one illustration of the diversity of research ongoing within the Society, and the impact we are having in important scientific areas. The significance of our efforts is also underscored by how well much of the cutting-edge toxicological research being conducted by our membership is aligned with the research pursuits of Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad and Sir Philip Cohen, who delivered the Plenary Opening and Keynote Medical Research Council (MRC) Lectures, respectively. Both of these outstanding scientists were recognized during the Annual Meeting with SOT Honorary Membership. We also continued a tradition started last year in recognizing outstanding scientific contributions by our own members. Kenneth E. McMartin received the Translational Impact Award, and Richard S. Paules received the Leading Edge in Basic Science Award. The strength of our membership was also reflected in this year’s Meet the Directors series, where presentations about emerging trends in toxicology research and funding opportunities were given by Linda S. Birnbaum, Director of NIEHS and NTP, William Slikker, Jr., Director, U.S. FDA/NCTR, and Harold Zenick, Director, U.S. EPA/NHEERL.
As I write this message, I know that many of you are already preparing for the next SOT Annual Meeting, which will take place March 6–10, 2011, in our nation’s capital (and my home town!!), Washington, D.C. Once again, we will have themes for our Annual Meeting: Emerging Global Public Health Issues, Environment and Disease, Global Air Quality and Human Health, Integration of Toxicological and Epidemiological Evidence to Understand Human Risk, Novel Approaches to Preclinical Safety Assessment: Bridging the Gap Between Discovery and the Clinic Through Translational Toxicology, and Toxicity Testing: State of the Science and Strategies to Improve Public Health; as well as CE target areas: Cardiovascular Toxicology, Epigenetic Mechanisms, and Systems Biology. Hopefully, many of you have already submitted proposals aligned with those themes and target areas.
We look forward to this meeting, which will be our 50th Anniversary. The stage is set for this incredible milestone…and the 50th Year Anniversary SOT Task Force (FAST) is well on its way in planning our celebration. I will provide opportunities in the year ahead to increase your anticipation of and preparation for this very special internationally recognized scientific event.
Over the next year I also will communicate more about the Society’s efforts to fully implement our Strategic Plan, established in 2008, which was designed to carry us through 2011 and was reviewed and extended through 2012. As we approach the last years of the current SOT Strategic Plan, the 2010–2011 Council will review progress toward each of the Strategic Priorities and will develop a “report card” as a start to updating our plan. As typified in some of the themes for the 50th Annual Meeting, we will work to fully implement our Global Strategy in 2010–2012. This year, we also will remain committed to expanding and deepening member engagement through the implementation of 21st century communications tools, such as ToXchange. We will also continue to improve membership engagement through the efforts of a Council Subcommittee on Scientific Position Papers. The members of this subcommittee have recognized that the Society must be able to offer its learned opinion on controversial issues with a balanced perspective and that failure to adopt a procedure for accomplishing this goal may marginalize SOT as an authoritative organization.
Before I close, I want to thank the SOT Councilors whose terms have ended for their exemplary service, including Kenneth S. Ramos, Martin A. Philbert, Patricia E. Ganey, and Ronald N. Hines, and welcome to the Council William Slikker, Jr., John B. Morris, Donald A. Fox, and Michael P. Waalkes. I will certainly miss the contributions of the outgoing Council members and I look forward to working with the new members of Council. The Society is truly blessed to have these kinds of individuals be willing to give up their personal time to serve in such important leadership positions.
Michael P. Holsapple
2010–2011 SOT President
Past Presidents of the Society
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