Message from the President

What is the purpose of scientific societies?

This feels like a natural question to ask, given that this is my first month as President of ASPET. Leading ASPET in the right direction requires an understanding of the society’s purpose.

When ASPET was founded in 1908 by John J. Abel and a handful of other pharmacologists, the founding documents they wrote emphasized that the central purpose of the society was to facilitate communication between investigators working in the broad area of pharmacology.

Since that time, ASPET has consistently published journals and organized meetings, which obviously are very important ways of facilitating communication between scientists. But ASPET is about a lot more than just publishing journals and organizing meetings.

The larger ambition that Abel and colleagues had in mind when they founded ASPET was for scientists interested in curing disease to develop a sense of community. If scientists could feel like they were members of the same team, as opposed to lone wolves working in their individual labs, this would facilitate collaborations and also allow for collective action in a way that would advance the field and benefit society as a whole.

ASPET has been succeeding in realizing the founders’ vision for over a century, developing a sense of community that is incredibly strong. And this sense of community has never been more important than it is right now.

The scientific community is under attack in a way that is unprecedented in modern history. Traditionally, funding of biomedical research has been enthusiastically supported in a bipartisan manner in the USA, but now we face the very real possibility of federal support for research being massively cut for political reasons.

This moment is one of those times, as envisioned by the founders of ASPET, when collective action is needed. Scientists need to speak up, and ASPET and other scientific societies have crucial roles to play in helping scientists come together and get our message out to sway the opinions of political leaders and the public about the urgency of supporting research.

Indeed, the recent actions of ASPET members have shown that there is a strong desire across our membership for an increased focus on advocacy and science policy. For example, readership of ASPET’s Advocacy Brief is at an all-time high. Moreover, ASPET members’ enthusiastic participation in recent action alerts have resulted in many hundreds of messages being sent to Congress advocating to protect biomedical research from proposed cuts.

In response to ASPET members’ desire for greater impact on science policy, ASPET will be launching an effort this month to provide members with the resources needed to become stronger science advocates. These resources include a blend of pre-recorded videos and live interactive training sessions via Zoom in which ASPET members can ask questions and learn directly from ASPET science policy experts. The hope is that these resources will help interested ASPET members to become even more effective advocates for research funding.

Beyond these actions within ASPET, we have also been greatly expanding our interactions with other scientific societies, because getting scientists from different fields on the same page can make collective action even stronger. For this reason, ASPET has been highly engaged in Research America and other consortia aimed at amplifying our message, while also reaching out directly to some of our closest allies to find ways to synergize and enhance our impact.

Scientific societies are important at all times, but they are especially important during times of crisis like we face now. Responding effectively to crises requires collective action, and the facilitation of such collective action is a fundamental reason why ASPET and other scientific societies exist. Let’s come together during this challenging time to continue our cutting-edge research aimed at curing disease while also redoubling our efforts to communicate (via social media, writing to our representatives, giving local talks, etc.) why this research is so vital and so worthy of robust support.

Sincerely,