ASPET Division for Drug Metabolism

Minutes for the Business Meeting

April 13, 2003; San Diego CA

Attendance:

Dick Okita, David Riddick, Jim Halpert, Xinxin Ding, Jeff Stevens, Yoichi Osawa, Mike Franklin, Ron Hines, Paul Hollenberg, Tom Kocarek, Elizabeth Roberts-Kirchhoff, Tim Tracy, Emily Scott, John Chiang, Dennis Koop, Eddie Morgan, Joyce Goldstein, Russ Prough, Larry Kaminsky

 Minutes for the Business meeting held April 22, 2002 in New Orleans were distributed.

 1. Election results

The new officers elected to the Executive Committee were recognized: Tim Tracy (Chair-Elect) and Craig Svensson (Secretary/Treasurer-Elect).  Yoichi Osawa’s term as Councilor finishes June 30, 2003 and he was recognized for his three years of dedicated service. Nominations are being accepted for a new Councilor to be appointed by the Executive Committee for a three-year term beginning July 1, 2003.

 2. Budget

The per member allocation to each division was reduced by 50% in the fall of 2002.  This resulted in a new division budget of $7,585 for 2003.  With a carryover of $1,527 from 2002, this gives us a total of $9,112 to work with for the calendar year.  The current projection is that we should just break even for 2003, but there probably will not be a significant carryover at year-end. 

Clearly, we need to increase our primary and secondary members in order to have a positive impact on our budget.  Strategies for new member recruitment were discussed.

In terms of cost savings for 2003, one obvious strategy that was implemented was to cut back on the mixer.  We maintained student and post-doctoral best paper awards at $200 (first place) and $100 (second place) this year.  For 2004, award amounts that are consistent across divisions will be instituted by ASPET:  all post-doctoral awards will be $300, and all graduate student awards will be $200.  Depending on the number of meritorious submissions received, we will limit our awards to a maximum of two in each category (i.e. maximum total of $1,000).

 3. Brodie award fund

Ron Hines continues to lead the drive to raise funds to permanently endow the Brodie award.  The fund now stands at approx $36,000 to $40,000.  We need to achieve the goal of $60,000 by 2004 to keep the award at its current level and frequency.  Paul Hollenberg reported that this is very respectable progress in fund-raising in comparison to other divisions.  A related issue is that ISSX plans to develop a new award to honor Jim Gillette

 4. EB 2004

Next year’s meeting will be held at the new convention center in Washington DC.  In addition to our oral platform session, all four of our submitted proposals for division-sponsored symposia were ranked highly and approved by the ASPET Program Committee.  Some other divisions have weak submissions, which raises concerns for ASPET.

Dick Okita raised the possibility of organizing a workshop on the re-organization of NIH study sections for EB 2004.  Division members are encouraged to start thinking of hot symposia ideas for EB 2005; proposals are due by Feb 15, 2004  and this will be handled by Tim Tracy.  We can expect increased input from the ASPET Program Committee with regard to suggested hot topics.

Interest was expressed for expanding the time allotted to Gillette award winners at the platform session.  A 15 or 20 minute presentation would be more appropriate, with the possibility that speakers could extend their talk beyond a discussion of the specific paper and include newer related data.

A discussion related to whether all graduate students and post-doctoral best paper award winners should be required to give oral presentations in the platform session.  This was the division policy in the past, but the new revised system allowing for posters or orals seems to have worked well for the past three years.  Our current system integrates well with the timing of ASPET’s programming decisions and it provides maximum flexibility for individuals that have a preference for poster vs. oral.  We must encourage more submissions for these awards.

 5. New business

David Riddick (Secretary/Treasurer) was recognized for his contributions to division activities over the past year.  A special birthday for Ron Hines was recognized.  Jeff Stevens was congratulated for his work on the roundtable summary paper published recently in Drug Metabolism & Disposition.

Submitted by David Riddick (Secretary/Treasurer)

April 14, 2003