Breakthrough discoveries are occurring almost every day, yet the policies that regulate the day-to-day application and determine the funding for these new technologies limit their translation into everyday life. As humankind progresses into the scientific unknown, a couple questions remain: how influential are these policies in terms of developing the scientific enterprise, and what are the regulatory steps to propel these policies into legislation?

“This was my second time taking the course. It was very helpful in contextualizing policy for a scientist. Prior to the course, I had felt like there was so much that I did not know about how the government worked in the way it related to science, and the course does a great job getting us up to speed with how federal agencies and funding work.”

Marah Wahbeh, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

To address these questions, members of the Genetics Society of America’s Early Career Leadership Program teamed up with the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to participate in the “Introduction to Science Advocacy and Policy” short course offered through FASEB. As a non-profit organization founded in 1912, FASEB is the largest biomedical coalition in the United States that comprises 28 scientific societies and more than 115,000 researchers globally. The Science Advocacy and Policy short course was led and moderated by Yvette Seger, PhD, FASEB’s Director of Science Policy, and Jennifer Zeitzer, FASEB’s Director of Public Affairs.

The course consisted of four one-and-a-half hour sessions over the span of one month. In the first session, participants were introduced to the US government; more specifically, participants learned about key national government agencies and the relationship between these agencies and science policy, as well as the legislative processes that facilitate science policy enactment and implementation. The second session covered various budget and appropriation processes that determine and allocate yearly funding for scientific ventures. The final session introduced the different types and roles of science advisors in the federal government, as well as the differences between the development and implementation of policies and regulations. To conclude the course, participants tested their ability to communicate in the realm of policy by drafting responses to and memos about past or topical policy items. The culmination of all of these sessions developed participants’ skills in policy analysis, writing, and advocacy. 

Members of GSA’s Early Career Leadership Program stated that this was a “great introduction into science policy,” helping to “contextualize policy for a scientist.” The FASEB and GSA Introduction to Science Advocacy and Policy short course will once again be offered in the late spring of 2023. Interested participants should make their interest known, as the 15 slots will fill up quickly.

Please contact jvelez@genetics-gsa.org or yseger@faseb.org for more information. You can learn more about the Genetics Society of America’s Early Career Leadership Program here: Early Career Leadership – Genetics Society of America.

In response to concerns that have been raised about reproducibility in biomedical research, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) invited experts, delegates from its member societies (including GSA), and representatives from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and other stakeholders to discuss general factors that may impede the ability to reproduce experimental results.

It should be emphasized that the challenges in reproducing research results are not due to research misconduct nor to poor research design; rather, they generally result from the lack of uniform definitions, insufficient reporting of specific experimental details, and gaps in our understanding of biological systems. Indeed, variations in results often provide key insights into previously unrecognized phenomena and enhanced understanding of biology.

The dialog convened by FASEB is captured in Enhancing Research Reproducibility, which provides recommendations to promote the reproducibility and transparency of biomedical and biological research. The 15 recommendations in the report, which address actions for researchers, institutions, professional societies, journals, and federal agencies are listed below.

Recommendations:

FASEB identified three overarching recommendations that it believes will help enhance the reproducibility and transparency of research overall:

1. Scientists, policy makers, and journalists should use precisely defined terms and definitions when discussing research rigor and transparency to promote uniform understanding.
2. The inability to reproduce research findings among laboratories may result from a lack of sufficient detail in the reporting of critical materials or methods. FASEB
   recommends that professional societies, commercial reagent vendors, scientific journals, and funding agencies engage in a dialog to develop expectations for describing reagents, laboratory tools, and protocols in publications and grant applications.
3. Rigorous and transparent research is dependent upon adherence to good research practices by all research team members, including but not limited to principal investigators/faculty members, staff scientists, postdoctoral scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, core facility staff, and institutional leadership.

The FASEB report also includes focused discussion on some of the research areas that have provided some of the most concern: research using mouse and other animal models—and research using antibodies. Recommendations in these areas are below:

4. In 2010, two independent groups—the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) and the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) published guidelines to improve the reporting of research using animals, maximizing the utility of published studies and minimizing the need for additional studies. NC3Rs’s Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) Guidelines and ILAR’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals  and Guidance for the Description of Animal Research in Scientific Publications serve as useful references. FASEB recommends that institutional animal facilities, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), and professional societies work together to promote awareness and use—as appropriate—of the ARRIVE and ILAR guidelines in animal research.
5. As their research roles expand or change, research team members may require additional training to understand, implement, and report animal husbandry practices and genetic backgrounds of animal subjects. Access to statisticians or additional statistical training may also be necessary to ensure that animal sample sizes are sufficient for the required analyses. FASEB recommends that training resources be made available to the research community on a regular, on demand basis.
6. The organization, daily operation, environment, and staffing of an animal facility can affect the outcomes of experiments. Therefore, animal facilities and staff should be considered extensions of an investigator’s laboratory and research team. FASEB recommends that investigators include animal facility staff in discussions of relevant aspects of experimental design. FASEB also recommends development of checklists to facilitate review of animal care variables and to denote study-specific variations.
7. Animal models provide critical insights into human biology and health. When communicating to the public about preclinical studies, researchers should clearly articulate the rationale for the choice of an animal model as well as its value and limitations in recapitulating human disease and its treatment.
8. Investigators and animal facility staff ensure humane treatment and care of animal subjects by adhering to established guidelines and federal regulations. To minimize environmental effects on experimental outcomes and continue to improve animal care standards, FASEB encourages institutions, veterinarians, and researchers to identify, understand, and promote the adoption of evidence-based husbandry practices. Reporting of animal care practices and study-specific variations will enhance reproducibility.
9. FASEB recommends that researchers, professional societies, and journals use standard nomenclature when reporting animal husbandry practices, breeding practices, and genetic backgrounds of study subjects in grant applications and publications.
10. FASEB strongly recommends that researchers, journals, and funding agencies work together to develop and adopt a standard format for citing antibodies in grant applications and publications. At minimum, this standard format should include the complete product name, catalog number, antibody type (monoclonal, polyclonal, or recombinant), vendor, target, lot number, and dilution/concentration.
11. There is a growing concern that all lab personnel may not fully appreciate the underlying science or limitations of commercially available antibodies or antibody based kits. Although vendor-supplied technical information may help investigators select reagents such as antibodies, this information is insufficient for validation. Therefore, FASEB recommends that stakeholders—including researchers, funding agencies, product vendors, and journals—convene an impartial advisory body to determine information needed for high quality technical bulletins. This might include immunogenic sequence, epitope sequence, cross-species reactivity, and methodologies for which the antibody is validated.
12. To achieve uniform reporting of research findings, FASEB recommends that investigators, funding agencies, and journals adopt best practices for experiments
    using antibodies. Best practices may vary by field and technique.

Finally, FASEB recommended several strategies that it believes will help increase awareness about these issues among scientists:

13. Rigor and reproducibility are critical for the advancement of science. To improve awareness within the scientific community regarding concerns about the translatability of basic research discoveries to clinical applications, strategies to enhance transparent reporting of research findings, and the new NIH policy that will go into effect on January 25, 2016, FASEB recommends that professional societies emphasize proactive efforts demonstrating the research community’s commitment to rigorous and transparent research. This could take several forms, including editorials in scientific journals, press releases, and development of uniform talking points. These efforts should acknowledge the distinction between strategies to enhance scientific rigor and transparency versus identification of scientific misconduct.
14. To facilitate investigator access to resources intended to enhance scientific rigor and transparency, FASEB recommends the establishment of a publicly accessible clearinghouse website. This website would aggregate existing training resources and best practices to enhance scientific rigor and transparency, such as those developed by NIH, professional societies, and research consortia. A resource hosted by a third-party such as FASEB would allow distribution of uniform information regardless of discipline or funding agency.
15. While the goal of FASEB’s rigor and reproducibility roundtables was to develop strategies to assist individual investigators in addressing the NIH policy that will go into effect on January 25, 2016, several opportunities for journals and society publications committees were also identified. Many journals have taken significant actions to address concerns about rigor and reproducibility. FASEB encourages professional societies to continue to enhance scientific rigor and transparency within their specific disciplines and share alternative strategies developed to address these issues.

The full report is available for download on the FASEB website.

GSA members are well represented among the winners of FASEB’s fourth annual BioArt competition: 4 of the 11 winning images were submitting by our members.

The BioArt competition seeks to share the beauty and excitement of biological research with the public by featuring captivating images and illustrations that represent cutting-edge life science research. All winning images and videos are from current or former federally funded investigators and/or members of FASEB societies.

Congratulations to the GSA members!

GSA members Adam Brown and David Biron
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Research Focus: Behavioral neurobiology

This image depicts a colony of Caenorhabditis elegans nematode worms feeding on bacteria. The worms congregate in patches where bacteria growth is the densest, in this case forming a ring. C. elegans are one of the simplest organisms with a nervous system, making them a valuable model in neurobiology. Mr. Brown is studying how serotonin, which is also present in the human brain, affects food-seeking and foraging behaviors and which specific nerve cells are involved. His research is supported by a training grant from the NIH National Institute of Mental Health.

Nathanaёl Prunet^1,2, GSA member Elliot Meyerowitz^1,3, and Thomas Jack^2
1California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
²Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
³Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Research Focus: Stem cells and flower development

Like most flowering plants, the male organs, or stamens, of Arabidopsis flowers surround a central female organ, or pistil. Precise control of which genes are activated in which cells is essential to the development of these adjacent, yet very distinct, structures. In this image of young Arabidopsis flower buds, the gene SUPERMAN (red) is activated at the boundary between the cells fated to form the male and female parts. SUPERMAN activity prevents the central cells, which will ultimately become the female pistil, from activating the masculinizing gene APETALA3 (green). This research seeks to identify principles of stem cell maintenance and cell specialization, which could inform future studies in agriculture, medicine, and other biological fields. The collaborative team of researchers receives support from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy Office of Science.

GSA member Suzana Car, Maria Hindt, Tracy Punshon, and GSA member Mary Lou Guerinot
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Research Focus: Plant biology and nutrition

The essential micronutrient zinc is vital for the function of more than 300 enzymes. Zinc deficiency affects more than two billion people worldwide and can impair the immune system, gastrointestinal function, and brain development. These researchers study how plants acquire, sequester, and distribute zinc with the goal of finding ways to increase the zinc content of crops. Using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence technology, they created this heat map of zinc levels in an Arabidopsis thaliana plant leaf. The National Science Foundation and the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences provide funding for this research program. The Department of Energy Office of Science funds the National Synchrotron Light Source facility, beamline X27A, which was used to create this image.

GSA member Shachi Bhatt and Paul Trainor
Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO

Research Focus: Developmental biology

Blood vessels and nerve cells run in parallel through the body and are dependent upon each other for proper function. They also follow similar early developmental paths, as seen in this image of an embryonic mouse torso. Drs. Bhatt and Trainor are studying these parallel pathways, focusing on a molecule implicated in controlling genes during the early development of blood vessels (gray) and nerve cells (red). Detailed knowledge of normal developmental processes forms a critical foundation for research on birth defects and other diseases affecting the development of these organ systems.

Additional Information:

• “BioArt Image and Video Competition 2015 Winners Announced,” November 24, 2015.

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has issued an action alert encouraging members of the research community to contact their Members of Congress to support passage of spending bills that support research. GSA is one of 27 FASEB member societies.

As reported earlier, the federal government is operating under a continuing resolution that extends spending only through December 11, 2015. The research community is pushing for an omnibus funding bill that would last for the rest of fiscal year (FY) 2016 and includes increases for funding agencies.

Congress has shown an interest in enhancing support for research. Back in June, the House Appropriations Committee advanced a spending bill for FY 2016 that would provide $31.2 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), $1.1 billion over the FY 2015 enacted budget. A few days later, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill that would provide $32 billion for NIH, an increase of nearly $2 billion. The National Science Foundation (NSF) also received increased support from the House this summer.

But without a budget for the rest of FY 2016, these encouraging signs would be for naught. As such, FASEB encourages those concerned about research to urge their Members of Congress to pass a FY 2016 omnibus funding bill that includes increases for NIH and NSF.

To send a message to your Senators and Representative, all you need to do is provide your email address and ZIP Code and make any edits you wish on the draft text provided.

Although thousands of messages have already been sent, it is important for your elected representatives to hear directly from you. They pay attention to their constituents and how many people care about an issue. A few minutes on your part can make a big difference.

GSA graduate student member Melanie McReynolds has been selected by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program to receive a FASEB MARC Travel Award to attend a September Grant Writing Seminar & Responsible Conduct of Research Workshop.

Melanie McReynolds, Graduate Student, Hanna-Rose Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State University

FASEB MARC Travel Awards are meant to promote the entry of students, post doctorates and scientists from underrepresented groups into the mainstream of the basic science community and to encourage the participation of young scientists in FASEB MARC activities. The program is supported by a grant from NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Additional Information: