19 Apr Spring AAS News and Updates
Dear AAS Members and friends,
I am pleased to provide this Spring 2021 update to highlight activities of the American Autonomic Society and autonomic community.
The AAS website gets a major makeover.
Our new website goes live on April 20, 2021! We have upgraded our website to a new platform and made extensive changes to improve the look and functionality. The new website includes better organized links to education and clinical resources as well as improved functionality for performing membership and registration tasks. The website URL is the same https://americanautonomicsociety.org/. Please take a look after April 20. Special thanks to Dr. Jackie Limberg and the AAS Communications Committee for their hard work to make this happen. Feedback is welcome; we will depend on our AAS community to help keep our website up to date. The new website will have a section for autonomic news.
Please also keep an eye on AAS Twitter for the latest AAS news.
2021 Annual Meeting – International Symposium on the Autonomic Nervous System.
We are looking forward to getting back together later this year in a live meeting in Hawaii. The 2021 AAS Meeting will be November 3-6, 2021 in Maui. We are very excited about the venue and the opportunity to host a live meeting. Please save the dates on your calendars. While we are seeing some favorable news with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognize that the future remains somewhat uncertain. By November, we hope that many attendees will be able to join us in Hawaii, but we are also making plans for virtual content. More details about the meeting along with registration and hotel information will be available on the new website (April 20). In the meantime, I would invite everyone to fill out a short survey about the 2021 meeting and your current plans.
Click here to TAKE THE SURVEY.
Call for Abstracts.
Share your research at the 2021 AAS Meeting. The deadline for abstract submission is June 1, 2021. You may submit abstracts via the new website (after April 20) or click here to access the ABSTRACT SUBMISSION form.
Selected abstracts will be presented at the 2021 AAS Meeting and published in a special edition of Clinical Autonomic Research. Abstract submission is FREE, but submission of an abstract is a commitment by the presenting author to register for the meeting and present the abstract if it is accepted.
IRB/IACUC requirement – Please remember that abstracts describing human research with 3 or more subjects will require appropriate IRB (or equivalent) approval. Abstracts involving animal research will require appropriate IACUC (or equivalent) approval. Abstracts without such approvals cannot be accepted.
Special virtual mentor-mentee session, May 7, 2021.
The AAS Trainee Committee is pleased to announce their first virtual Mentor-Mentee event, wherein trainees have the opportunity to network with other trainees and prominent researchers/clinicians in their field. The event is scheduled for May 7th, 2021 at 10-11:30 am PST. Clinical and research trainees in autonomic disorders, autonomic neuroscience or related fields are welcome. Topics for discussion will include: Women in science, Start up and managing your own lab, Research design and grant/manuscript writing, Parenting and work-life balance while in a research career, Non-academic/industry careers, Careers/training in autonomic medicine.
Trainees do not need to be AAS members to attend and participate in this event. Please click here to REGISTER for the mentor-mentee event.
Notice of special interest from NIH/NHLBI for POTS research.
After a lot of work by members of AAS and others, the NIH has recently announced a new Notice of Special Interest focused on stimulating Research on the Diagnosis, Treatment, and Mechanistic Understanding of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). It is very important that we, as the autonomic community, respond to this notice by submitting high quality grant proposals. A major problem in POTS research has actually been the small number of grant applications submitted so this new attention for POTS at the national level is a great opportunity to welcome new investigators in this area and build collaborations. Click here for more information.
Suggested research examples include, but are not limited to:
- Studies to understand causes/mechanisms of POTS (e.g., neuropathology, cardiovascular structure/function, immunology, neurocognitive)
- Diagnostic, prognostic, and monitoring biomarker (fluid, imaging) studies
- Longitudinal natural history of POTS Genetic
- Epigenetic studies to understand clustering in families, female predominance, and race/ethnic predilections to POTS
AAS Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
Recently, we have reformulated and strengthened special interest groups (SIG) within the AAS. We encourage members to join one (or more) of our working committees or special interest groups (SIG). Any AAS member is welcome to join. If you are interested in joining an AAS committee or SIG, please message the AAS and we will add you to the SIG roster or submit your name to the committee chair for consideration. Self-nominations for committees should be submitted before the end of December.
The current AAS committees and SIGs (and current chairs) are listed below:
Education Committee: Dr. Glen Cook
Meeting Committee: Dr. Rasna Sabharwal
Membership Committee: Dr. Victoria Claydon
Science Committee: Dr. Marvin Medow
Communications Committee: Dr. Jackie Limberg
Trainee Affairs Committee: Vera-Ellen Lucci
Clinical Affairs & Scientific Endorsement Committee: Dr. Alex Barboi
Development Committee: Dr. Wolfgang Singer
Pediatric Autonomic Section: Dr. Mohammed Numan
Women in Autonomics SIG: Dr. Amanda Peltier
Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) SIG: Dr. Howard Snapper
Advanced Practice Providers (APP) SIG: Erin Marriott
New initiatives for AAS position statements and endorsement of publications.
The American Autonomic Society has revised our plan and the process for developing official position statements about autonomic topics as well as our approach to formally endorsing other autonomic publications. The new website will have links to a collection of AAS position statements and practice guidelines. Special thanks to the AAS Board members Dr. Alex Barboi and Dr. Satish Raj (Past-President) for helping to advance this initiative. If you know of topics that would benefit from an AAS publication to advance our field or if you are interested in proposing an idea for an AAS publication, please contact me or Alex to discuss it.
Thank you for your ongoing interest and dedication to autonomic disorders. And for your help in making the AAS a strong and vibrant society.
If you haven’t yet renewed your AAS membership for 2021, please do so right away. And, please encourage your colleagues and trainees to join us.
Happy Spring,
Steve Vernino, MD, PhD
President, American Autonomic Society
steven.vernino@utsouthwestern.edu