Andrew Shubin, UR APSA Representative
By Andrew Shubin, University of Rochester APSA Institutional Representative
The 11th Annual APSA National meeting was held in conjunction with the American Association of Physicians (AAP) and American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) at the beautiful Fairfield Millennial Hotel on Lake Michigan, on April 24th-26th, 2015 in Chicago, IL. The meeting began with the annual APSA business meeting, where the 6 standing committees of APSA present their work to the institutional reps. Highlights of this meeting include push to increase APSA membership through APSA local chapters, fundraising of over $100,000 for APSA events, and the recent compilation of a survey of MD/PhD students to understand motivations and challenges for pursuing training which is currently in preparation in submission to be published. The rest of the meeting consisted of research talks given by premier physician scientists as well as numerous social networking events described below.
Research Talks
In addition to the invited APSA speakers, APSA members had complete access to all of the invited talks of the AAP and ASCI some highlights include:
Jeffrey Kline, MD
An emergency medicine trained physician scientist, Dr. Klein, talked about his lab’s work studying coagulation and fibrinolysis as well as his career as an academic emergency doctor with a strong research focus.
Douglas Lowy, MD
Acting director of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Lowy played a major role in developing and implementing the HPV vaccine.
Jennifer Doudna, PhD
Dr. Doudna talked about her pioneering work in developing CRISPR-Cas9 method to modify DNA.
Frances Collins, MD, PhD
Dr. Collins was the recipient of the Kober Medal price. His early life, career, and major scientific contributions were highlighted by Dr. David Ginsburg. Dr. Collins graciously accepted the award, guitar in hand, by leading the audience in a sing-a-long.
Richard L Ehman MD
Dr. Ehman’s talk focused on how biomedical research, particularly NIH funded biomedical research, has one of the best return on investment, for any form of research in the US. Dr. Ehman also played a pivotal role in developing MRI diagnostic technologies. Andy Cox also recruited him to be our next MSRS speaker!
Social/Networking
APSA Welcome Reception
A social event for APSA members to mingle and meet those at other institutions held at the top of Hancock center, with arguably the best view of Chicago around.
APSA Dinner
Another great opportunity to meet students from other institutions. Our own Dr. Kerry O’Banion, was awarded the APSA founder’s award for his work advising and securing funding for APSA.
AAP Reception
A dessert reception with a keynote given by the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Peter Agre on his career development and work discovering aquaporins.
Residency Luncheon
An opportunity to meet with residency directors from residency programs with a strong research focus. Many of them being physician scientist training fast track
programs.
Overall
In addition to this events there were also panels cover topics such as Women in Medicine and Science, Technological Innovation in Biomedical and Translation Research, and Post-Graduate Opportunities.
Overall, the 2015 APSA was an amazing experience, one I hope to attend next year as well. I would like to thank my fellow colleagues: Andy Cox, Aisha Siebert, Alison Gaylo, and Alex Hajduczok as well as Kerry O’Banion for representing Rochester well and making the conference a lot of fun. I hope everyone has the opportunity to attend this conference at least once!