Dear ASPET Members,

In 2017, the ASPET Council introduced a strategic plan to help fulfill our mission to be the professional home for educators, students, researchers, healthcare practitioners, and other professionals working to advance pharmacology research, exchange knowledge, and increase the impact and influence of this scientific discipline. Council identified six main goals, one of which focused on the ASPET annual meeting experience. This goal set specific objectives within our current framework to make our annual meeting the place to discover and present the highest quality, innovative science in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics.

Over the last three years, we have made significant progress in reimagining the annual meeting experience for our members, including creating more flexible session structures, improving the poster experience, and enhancing networking opportunities. We have worked closely with our meeting partners to foster a culture of multi-disciplinary collaboration to advance the biomedical sciences together. During this time, we have also faced many challenges, including the financial viability of our annual meeting structure, logistical challenges of meeting with four other scientific societies, engaging more members to participate, and of course the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The ASPET Council has spent considerable time discussing the challenges facing our Society and our annual meeting, benchmarking with other successful scientific meetings, and analyzing data from our own membership surveys. While these discussions were taking place, ASPET learned that two long-standing partners (ASBMB and APS) would be leaving Experimental Biology (EB) after the 2022 meeting. 

This Fall, the ASPET Council voted unanimously to transition to a stand-alone ASPET annual meeting starting in 2023. We believe this is an opportunity to cultivate a stronger sense of community among members, greater creativity and flexibility in the meeting organization, more intimate networking interactions, and better overall value to our members.

The Council will be initiating a strategic planning process to design a new stand-alone meeting and as we move forward with implementation, we will be encouraging member participation and feedback. We will be in touch with additional information in the near future.

Kind Regards,

Charles P. France, PhD
ASPET President

Judith A. Siuciak, PhD
ASPET Executive Officer