Public Affairs Updates
Dianne McGavin
NIH's Panel on Scientific Boudaries for Review met on November 8-9 to
consider comments received from the scientific community to its Phase 1
draft report. Three Integrated Review Groups (IRGs) were added to the 21
proposed in the Phase 1 report. They are:
1) Biology of Development and Aging
2) Renal and Urological Sciences
3) AIDS and AIDS-related Research
The panel plans to conduct conference calls with "experts in specific
areas.....to refine the recommendations in the Phase 1 report." The
Panel's
Phase 2 activities will begin in early 2000, when it will establish panels
composed of NIH staff and relevant members of extramural communities.
These
panels will design study sections for some of the newly recommended IRGs.
Plans include for additional panels to be commissioned in 2001 to complete
Phase 2.
Call for NSF Stories
The Public Affairs Committee is gathering information to help explain to
Congress and the public the impact that NSF-funded research has made on
biomedical research. Do you have a personal vignette or story about an
advancement made from research that was funded by the NSF? Send it to
soc...@biophysics.faseb.org.
Barkley Visit with Tubbs Jones
Biophysical Society representative to the FASEB Board, Mary Barkley,
visited her Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) on Capitol Hill
while
in town for the FASEB board meeting. Jones, a first-term Representative,
asked many questions regarding NIH activities. During a lengthy and
animated
discussion, Barkley was able to acquaint Jones with some of the issues and
concerns shared by primary investigators in laboratories throughout the
country, while Jones shared her own difficulties in often having to choose
between important and worthy programs. In discussing both NIH and NSF
funding, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones was encouraging about the prospects for
strong support of science among her colleagues.