ISCB Newsletter 16-1

FASEB ACTIVITIES

By Allison Lea

GET TO KNOW
ISCB FASEB REPRESENTATIVES

Judith Blake, PhD, FASEB Board Representative - Dr. Blake is an Associate Professor of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the Jackson Laboratory. She has been a member of the FASEB Board of Directors since 2003.
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David M. Rocke, PhD, FASEB Board Advisor - Dr. Rocke is Distinguished Professor in the Division of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health Sciences and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, where he has been on the faculty since 1980.
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Harel Weinstein, DSc, FASEB Science Policy Committee Representative - Dr. Weinstein is the Maxwell Upson Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and the Founder and Director of the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University.
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Scott Markel, PhD, FASEB Publications and Communications Committee - Dr. Markel is the Principal Bioinformatics Architect at Accelrys and is a part of the Research & Developement group. He is also the secretary of ISCB and the Chair of the ISCB Publications and Communications Committee.
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Fran Lewitter, PhD, FASEB Science Research Conferences Advisory Committee - Dr. Lewitter is the Director of Bioinformatics and Research Computing at Whitehead Institute. She also is the ISCB Education Committee Chair and leads the ISCB GOBLET collaboration.
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Taner Sen, PhD, FASEB Excellence in Science Award Committee - Dr. Sen is a Computational Biologist for the USDA-ARS and a Collaborator Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biologist at Iowa State University. He is also a member of the ISCB Public Affairs Committee.

Since 1912, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has worked continuously to promote biological research and has become an organization that legislators, federal agencies, and the media turn to for information on policies related to biomedical science and engineering. This year, the number of combined membership of FASEB's 26 societies surpassed 115,000 researchers and scientists. For ISCB, 2013 marks its ten-year anniversary as a FASEB society.

FASEB's dedication to increased federal funding for research, led the Federation to be one of the first groups to call attention to the threat of sequestration. FASEB's Office of Public Affairs (OPA) released factsheets, along with an analysis (updated in May 2013), demonstrating how sequestration cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget would affect each state. The factsheets were set to each state governor to highlight the importance of supporting local research institutions that depend on federal funding.

In addition, FASEB's e-Action alert, sent out in December, generated nearly 20,000 e-mails sent to members of Congress, urging them to prevent sequestration, and OPA's legislative affairs staff organized two Capitol Hill Days, where 40 FASEB society members met with 70 members of Congress to impress the importance of biomedical and biological research for our nation's future. Although sequestration could not be averted, FASEB continues to strongly advocate, on behalf of its members and scientists nationwide, for continued federal funding for science and engineering.

The Federation has also been engaged in several other activities relevant to biological and biomedical research over the past several months.

For example: This spring, FASEB submitted a proposal to NIH for a National Research Mentoring Network planning grant that aims to (1) identify and analyze best practices in mentoring; (2) develop new models for enhanced mentoring and create resources to expand mentees accessibility to potential mentors; and (3) design a system for managing and sharing mentoring resources and establish a plan for evaluating outcomes.

OPA staff created an online survey to collect opinions of scientists in response to the National Science Board's Request for Information (RFI) on Regulatory Burden. The survey, which yielded over 1,300 participants, was turned into a comprehensive report to supplement FASEB's response to the RFI.

FASEB submitted a response to NIH on its Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) training plans and sent comments to NIH on its Data and Informatics Implementation Plan.

In May of this year, FASEB announced its second annual BioArt competition, for federally-funded scientists to submit captivating, high-resolution images and videos representing cutting edge, 21st Century biomedical research. The selected winners (ten images and two videos) will be announced on August 1.

FASEB had an "op/ed" letter published in Nature to express its concern of the recent criticisms in a Nature editorial regarding communications spending by the National Cancer Institute's Office of Communications and Education that prompted a Congressional inquiry into "PR" expenditures across NIH. In the letter (which has been accepted for publication), FASEB emphasized that this inquiry detracts attention from the larger issue of sequestration, and while further cuts to NIH's communications and education will do little to improve its economic situation, it could potentially make biomedical discoveries less accessible to those who need them.