Teratology Society
Members' Section
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Teratology Society Members' Section |
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Teratology Society Newsletter Volume
8, Number 4 Table of Contents
Notice: Revised Constitution and Bylaws of the Teratology Society were printed in the December issue of TERATOLOGY. Submitted by George Daston The program for the 1999 Annual Meeting is coming together and we should have something for everyone. The symposia topics for this year will include HIV and pregnancy, oxidative stress and apoptosis, skeletal development, and post-marketing surveillance of therapeutics. The continuing education course will re-visit a previous topic, postnatal developmental toxicity, but with a new twist. There is increasing societal pressure to do more to ensure that children are kept from harm by environmental chemicals, while at the same time there is pressure to include children in clinical trials for new drugs with pediatric indications. The course will look into the special susceptibilities of children, along with effective ways for assessing effects at this life stage. We will try to increase the exposure of poster presentations this year by holding two separate poster sessions, each with half the total number of posters, on successive evenings. We should all be able to see twice as many posters! Another feature of this year's program will be a special workshop, primarily for students, on the conduct of regulatory reproductive and developmental toxicity studies. We will also have discussion sessions on controversial topics in our field. Finally, we hope that all of you will take advantage of the electronic abstract submission that we are trying for the first time this year. The deadline for electronic submission is February 8, 1999. For additional information and deadlines, visit our Web site (http://teratology.org).
1999 Annual Meeting Preliminary Program Tuesday, June 29
What Fits Your Schedule? The Society is in the process of selecting sites for years 2001 and 2002. This is your chance to voice your preference for dates of the Societys annual meeting. Would you like to move the date of the annual meeting to April or May? Send an e-mail to tshq@teratology.org telling us in which month during the year you would prefer to hold the annual meeting. The
1999 Annual Meeting will be held June 29 - July 4, in Keystone, Colorado.
The Teratology Society annual meeting takes up about 1% of the year, yet we put a great deal of emphasis on it. Most of the time of the Society's officers and professional staff is spent planning the meeting. Site selection begins three or more years before each meeting and the program for the next year's meeting is under development even before the current year's meeting is over. As you read these words, the 39th annual meeting is a half-year away, yet those who are responsible for the meeting have been working hard on it for quite a while already. Why is our annual meeting so important to us? For some of us, it is a chance to get away, to take a break from the daily routine and relax in a vacation setting. For others, it is a way to keep up with old friends, mentors, and students. It can also be an important educational opportunity, a means to learn about the latest advances in our field. In fact, the meeting is all these things and a little more. It is a way to make contact with others and with ourselves, a reminder of why we went into this field and of our goals to understand abnormal development and to learn how to prevent abnormal reproductive outcomes. Getting back in touch with our goals is perhaps the most important part of the meeting. The relaxed setting gives us the time and energy, the old friends, mentors, and students give us a sounding board for our ideas, and the educational sessions expose us to the ideas of our colleagues. The recipe is perfect for an enjoyable few days after which we can return home with our batteries recharged, ready for another year in the lab or the clinic. There is something special about meeting with our colleagues face-to-face. In this era of inexpensive telephone connections, fax, and email, long distance communication is easy, but more communication among us occurs in the four days of our meeting than in all the 361 other days of the year combined. The best ideas and most productive work of our Society come from the annual meeting. For example, the idea for the Clarke Fraser New Investigator Award was born at the Wilson Dinner on the beach at the Breakers, and the stimulus for the Teratology Society to join FASEB came out of a meeting room at Keystone. In recent years, I have asked for and received a number of comments about the annual meeting. Satisfaction with the meetings has been very high, thanks to the many members who have made very important and useful suggestions for improving the program and the venue. We are gearing up for what will likely be our most successful meeting to date, our return to Keystone. As many of you remember, the setting in the Colorado Rockies is stunning, with clear cool air and picture-postcard mountain views. We have been able to get condominium lodgings at a cost similar to a hotel room in any other resort, which will allow those members who wish to economize to use their own kitchen facilities instead of eating in the restaurants. The program committee, headed by George Daston, has put together an outstanding mixture of symposia, platform presentations, and poster sessions. The resort will be sponsoring holiday entertainment for July Fourth for members and their families. The Teratology Society is expanding, adding new members from diverse disciplines. As we welcome these new members to the community that is our annual meeting, we will be helping to grow the fieldto increase the number of people and the level of commitment involved in birth defects research. Growing the field, increasing the commitment to birth defects research, is the highest goal of our Society. I ask all of you to come to the meeting, to have a good time, and to be a part of this good work.
1998-1999 President
An Evaluation and Interpretation of Reproductive Endpoints for Human Health Risk Assessment Available December 1998 Progress in basic toxicological research is inevitably followed by changes in the methods used to assess the potential for chemicals to produce adverse health effects. Significant changes have recently been made to testing guidelines for pesticides, commodity chemicals, and pharmaceutical agents that were intended to improve the sensitivity and broaden the scope of the methods by which developmental and reproductive toxicants are detected. These changes were precipitated both by collective experience with existing test methods and by the realization that a number of techniques developed in basic toxicology and reproductive biology may be useful in toxicity screening. Given the general lack of experience in measuring and interpreting several of these nontraditional reproductive endpoints, the ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute convened a workshop to assess and build scientific consensus regarding the value, application, and interpretation of both commonly measured and newly proposed reproductive endpoints. This report is the culmination of a series of commissioned papers that formed the basis for workshop panel discussions, perspectives, and comments received during and after the workshop. The endpoints that are addressed in this report include: (1) parameters associated with the developing organism (anogenital distance, balanopreputial separation, vaginal patency, and sexual maturation); and (2) adult reproductive parameters (oocyte quantitation, sperm parameters, vaginal cytology, histology of testis and ovary, and circulating hormone levels). Reproductive performance, which has traditionally been the ultimate measurement of reproductive function, provides a context against which to evaluate the newer endpoints. For each endpoint, current methods for measurement are discussed, including the role of endocrine influences, the interrelationship with other reproductive endpoints, information on species differences, and how the data from such studies should be interpreted for human health risk assessment. The inclusion of additional endpoints in reproductive toxicity studies should improve our ability to detect chemical hazards. The increased complexity of the study designs presents a challenge for those who perform and interpret these studies. The purpose of this volume is to provide guidance in those areas. It is an important step in the standardization of approaches to the evaluation and interpretation of reproductive endpoints for human risk assessment. To order a copy of this report, please submit your request and contact information by email to hesi@ilsi.org or by fax to HESI at 202/659-3617. In early 1999, the report will be available through the HESI site on the ILSI web page (www.ilsi.org)
Submitted by Terry Fico Have you visited the Teratology Society web site recently? Well you should! If you havent been there within the past few weeks you will notice a number of additions, changes and improvements. Our homepage is updated to reflect new information as it becomes available, such as business meeting minutes, meeting announcements and current events related to teratology. The web site is an active, dynamic site and the continuous changes, improvements and additions reflect not only the work of the web site committee but all of our members and even nonmembers who have visited the site, tried out the links and sent in their comments. Whats new on the web site this quarter? Weve added information on advertising rates, an ad order form and information on sponsorship opportunities (such as events planned for the annual meeting). Member Information has been updated and revised, for example, take a look at the business and council meeting minutes (it is one of the newer entries). Weve also added a listing of other interesting meetings in addition to previous and future Teratology Society meetings. Web pages and links which are in the planning stage include a listing of and links to training centers in teratology and other information for students and postdocs, images of the 1998 annual meeting (in color!) as well as (hopefully) a site to provide links to major databases containing information about the effects of drugs and chemicals on development and reproduction. Most recently a proposal was accepted by council that will allow the submission of abstracts via email, disk and FTP, in addition to hardcopy. Information on electronic abstract submittal has already been posted on the web site - well before the instructions appeared in this newsletter. The electronic submission of abstracts is intended to be a user friendly system that will accept word processed documents from all of the major word processing systems (Word, WordPerfect, Xywrite, etc.). Feedback from our membership is a necessity if our website is to adequately serve the needs of the society. Let us know what you like, what you use, what you dont like and what youd like to see added. Please contact any member of the web site committee or the entire committee via the new and improved comment submission page directly from the Teratology Society web site! Sending messages directly from the web site is now possible even through the most difficult fire walls/security systems. While on the web site home page, click on "Send Us Comments" (it is toward bottom of the left column). Then on the comment page, fill in 3 pieces of information about yourself: your name, E-mail address, and membership in the society. Then select where youd like to direct your E-mail; there are 5 choices via a drop-down box. Next enter your comments and when finished click the submit button. Thats all there is to it!! So to paraphrase a former mayor of New York City, please let us know "Howre we doing?"!!
There are about 800 members in the Teratology Society, yet there certainly must be more than 800 professionals in North America who are interested in birth defects research and prevention. We need to reach out to scientists and clinicians who may never have heard of our Society, in order to offer membership to the widest possible group of potential new members. The reasons to expand our membership base are clear:
Attracting new members depends directly on the efforts of our current members. If each of us brought in one new member, our Society would double in size overnight. We all know people who should have an interest in our Society; it is simply a matter of inviting them to join us. The Membership Committee has streamlined the process of applying. The requirement for membership is an interest in teratology, which can be evidenced by career activities as well as by publications. A sponsor who is a current member is necessary, but is not difficult to arrange. A simple one-page application form and a curriculum vitae is the only paperwork involved. An application form that can be photocopied appears with this newsletter as a separate insert. On-line application is available on our Web site (teratology.org). Nothing could be easier. Here are some suggestions:
However you do it, get the word out. If your method works, you could win our membership drive competition.
Department
of Genetics June 15th, 1959 Dear Colleague: As you know, the rapidly growing interest in Teratology has led, in the past few years, to a series of Conferences, informally arranged, but with a certain degree of organizational continuity. Until now, it has not been considered necessary to create any formal organization for the Teratologists, but the increasing number of workers interested in the field makes the time seem opportune for beginning a Teratology Society. We have therefore appointed ourselves an organizing committee to promote the beginnings of such a Society, and as a first step we are writing to you and a number of other workers to see if you are interested in belonging to it. In the beginning, the purpose of the Society would be to sponsor regular meetings for the presentation and discussion of teratological problems. An effort would be made to coordinate such meetings with meetings of other groups such as the Anatomists, Embryologists, Geneticists, Obstetricians, Pathologists, and Pediatricians, so that there would be a broad interdisciplinary liaison. The existence of a Society would be an advantage in approaching granting agencies for financial support for such meetings. Membership would be open to any scientist whose interest in teratology was manifested by publications in the field and a willingness to attend teratology meetings with reasonable regularity. We hope that the membership will include scientists from a wide variety of disciplines so that teratological problems will be presented and discussed from many points of view. A nominal membership fee of about $3 would cover mailing and secretarial expenses. The National Foundation has agreed to underwrite the initial expenses involved in incorporating the Society and getting it under way. If you would like to be a member of such a Society please write and tell us, and at the same time make any suggestions you have in mind as to the title, nature, and aims of the society. It is intended that a slate of officers would be elected at the next Teratology Conference. Yours Sincerely, F. Clarke Fraser, M.D. Acting
for:
Get involved in recruitment and you can win our membership drive competition. If you sponsor the largest number of accepted new memberships (student + Associate + Regular), you will be entitled to one year free membership plus any single-volume scientific text of your choice. A membership will be credited to you if approved as specified in the Constitution and Bylaws and after receipt of the new member's first year dues. The International Federation of Teratology Societies (IFTS) web site committee would like to invite you to share your knowledge and experience with other researchers around the world. By submitting images to the Atlas of Developmental Abnormalities in Common Laboratory Mammals on the WWW (http://www.ifts-atlas.org) you will be assisting many other laboratories correctly identify both rare and common fetal and neonatal abnormalities, and thus significantly contribute to the process of international harmonization. This web site was designed to allow anyone with an Internet browser to quickly search for images by keying in on simple terminology that was recently published in TERATOLOGY (vol. 55: 249-292, 1997). Once the probable term is found the image of the abnormality in rats, mice, and/or rabbits can easily be viewed. And if your specimen does not match the picture then it is a simple task to look for closely associated words and their images. Comments and questions on particular images are welcomed and can be sent to the committee from within the web site. The images will always be available to help clarify the written words we use to describe findings of experimental and safety assessment studies. But the site is only as useful as the images it contains (and it can hold 10,416 of them!). When you run across a clear example of something interesting, and even those that you consider common, please think about the IFTS atlas and collect a good image. The committee will accept any format of your image(s), but electronic (i.e., jpeg format) is preferred. All necessary information for submitting images is posted on the web site (go to CONTRIBUTE on the top banner). The
web site has won awards - HMS Beagle's "Web Pick of the Day"
and SciWeb's "Site of the Week". Through the generous support
of Rhône Poulenc Rorer the site is fully funded through the year
2000. With your help we hope to make the site a valuable resource to all
interested in the study and prevention of congenital abnormalities.
The American Academy of Neurology recently released the report from its Quality Standards Subcommittee. This report, published in the journal, Neurology (51:944-948), summarizes the combined wisdom of several decades of experience managing the pregnancies of women with seizure disorders. This remains an area of considerable concern and controversy as the teratogenicity of anti-epileptic medications continues to be debated. As such, it should be of passing interest to Society members; even those without direct clinical responsibilities. After reviewing the available literature published between 1965 and 1996, the committee arrived at the following recommendations: i) The choice of anti-epileptic medication for women with seizure disorders should be dictated by that which is most appropriate for seizure type. ii) Treatment regimens should be limited to a single drug, whenever possible. iii) Folic acid supplementation should be instituted in women with seizure disorders with no less than 400 µgs daily, prior to and throughout pregnancy. iv) Pre-pregnancy counseling should cover the following topics:
Dr.
Richard H. Finnell
Please welcome Tonia Masson as the new Executive Secretary for the Teratology Society. Tonia has over 5 years of experience in association management. Tonia replaces Nancy Dieter who has returned to the commercial real estate field. Feel free to contact Tonia at (703) 438-3104, extension 317 with any ideas or comments that you may have regarding the Society or your membership. You may also contact her via e-mail at tmasson@teratology.org. Your feedback and involvement help strengthen our Society. The Society has been transformed into a more efficient organization through the management services of the Association Development Group and we look forward to continuing this growth with Tonia.
Congratulations to Bern Schwetz who was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine.
The Council of the Teratology Society wishes to encourage full participation of all of its members. If there is an aspect of the Society in which you would like to become more involved, we would like to hear from you. In particular, please let us know if you are interested in: 1) publishing the newsletter (desk-top publishing skills needed) 2) serving on committees 3) chairing sessions at the annual meeting If you are interested, please send an e-mail to George Daston (daston.gp@pg.com) or Tonia Masson (tmasson@teratology.org).
Society of Toxicology 38th Annual Meeting, March 14-18, 1998, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, LA. Contact: Annette Flannery; tel: (703) 438-3115 x 306 ; e-mail: annettef@toxicology.org. Teratology Society Annual Meeting, June 29 Ë July 4, 1999, Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado. Contact: Matt Rineer, tel: (703) 438-3104, fax: (703) 438-3113, e-mail: tshq@teratology.org. The Jackson Laboratory 1st Annual Meeting on Transgenic Rodent Models in Modern Risk Assessment, September 8-12, 1998, Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine. Contact: Sandy Wilcomb, Meeting Administrator, 600 Main Street, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609; tel: (207) 288-6419; fax: (207) 288-6080; e-mail: slw@jax.org. 6th International Congress on Amino Acids, August 3-7, 1999, Bonn, Germany. Contact: O. Labudova, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universat¬ t, Experimentelle Radiologie und Strahlenbiologie, Sigmund-Freud-Strasse 25, D-53105, Bonn, Germany, fax: +49-228-287-4457, e-mail: hrink@mailer.meb.uni-bonn.de. |
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