President's Message | June 2017

Rick Domann, Ph.D., The University of Iowa

As summer heats up, thoughts drift to research plans for next year. And there’s a sense of shared optimism that some of these dreams may become realized in the form of extramurally funded research project grants. This is due mainly to the successful passage of congressionally legislated and presidentially signed spending bill that contains a greater than $2 billion dollar spending increase to the National Institutes of Health. This omnibus spending bill will fund the U.S. government through September 30, 2017. While it is not yet clear how these increased resources will be allocated, there is, as I mentioned, a glimmer of optimism for those with grant scores just outside the pay line.

And while on the national front it has been a year of political turmoil and uncertainty as we face the future of research and development, it is clear that the NIH spending measure was a clear and convincing example of bipartisan cooperation as legislators from both sides strongly supported increasing NIH spending. We can only hope for more of this kind of aspirational leadership from our legislators as they continue to position themselves for FY2018 budget negotiations. SfRBM plays a very active role, both on its own and as a constituent of FASEB, in meeting with legislators on Capitol Hill to promote the value of science to our society and the importance such research plays in advancing technology and medicine.  Margaret Briehl has recently stepped down and Eric Kelley has accepted the appointment as SfRBM’s representative to FASEB’s Science Policy Board. I thank both of them and all the VPs for their continued service to SfRBM. 

On another note, the upcoming 24th Annual Meeting in Baltimore is taking shape and I’d like to thank everyone that submitted a symposium proposal. Another big thank you goes out to the Program Committee for their vital role in evaluating and selecting the major symposia. This year we will again have parallel symposia on Thursday and Friday, a program format that was very popular last year. You may notice that the Society put the pedal to the metal this year, with symposia on selenium, calcium, and ferroptosis. Additionally, mitochondria will again be featured, as will redox biology of normal vs tumor cells, and translational aspects of redox-signaling. We will also again use the SfRBM meeting app, and be active on our social media platforms during the meeting, posting with the hashtag #SfRBM2017.

A major benefit of meeting in Baltimore is the close proximity to NIH and to Johns Hopkins University. As such, and with Mike Espey’s help, we have put together an amazing pre-meeting workshop, a doorstep symposium really. The purpose of this doorstep event is to explore the concept of Redox Physical Oncology, and the itinerary boasts a speaker slate of some of the nation’s foremost authorities on redox physical oncology topics such as hypoxia, bioinorganic chemistry, tumor microenvironment, and much, much more. At this event, the use of advanced technologies to study and understand the roles of redox effectors in cancer processes will be highlighted in sessions that span both basic mechanistic studies and translational work on tumor cells and physical microenvironment dynamics. Attendees will enjoy a small meeting format with leaders in cancer biology and a “meet the expert” luncheon. I encourage everyone to get to Baltimore early this fall and enjoy this special SfRBM-JHU-NCI co-sponsored pre-meeting event that begins Wednesday, November 29, at 8 AM at the meeting hotel.

Lastly, also on the topic of meetings, I’d like to announce here for the first time the regional 2018 SfRBM-Oberley symposium will be held at the University of Nebraska Omaha in June 2018; watch for further announcements!