Teratology Society

Members' Section

Teratology Society Newsletter

Volume 9, Number 2

Table of Contents

Newsletter Goes On-Line

Submitted by Robert E. Seegmiller

In accordance with a previous Council decision, three newsletters will be published per year. The first two will be available as hard copy only, whereas the third and all future copies will be published electronically and made available on the Teratology Web site.

One more issue remains to be published in this fiscal year. And, it will be available on the Web site. Members will be notified via E-mail as to the date the newsletter will be available. Text copies will be made available, upon request, to those members who do not have access to the web. Announcement of each issue will be provided through the Web site, postcards and E-mail to Society members.

To request a text copy of the newsletter be sent to you via E-mail or USPS, please contact the Society Headquarters at (703) 438-3104 or E-mail at tshq@teratology.org.

This issue is the last hard copy of the newsletter in this format. The deadline for submitting articles for the next newsletter is November 1.

Submitted by George Daston

Nancy Olsen recently joined Wiley-Liss and is the new interface between the publisher and the Teratology Society. Nancy came to our Annual Meeting and met at length with the Publications Committee and the Society's leadership. Nancy has a lot of great ideas about how to improve the Journal, and how to improve relationships between Wiley and the Teratology Society.

One change that you should already know about, by the time this newsletter reaches you, is an agreement by Wiley to offer all individual members of the Society free access to Teratology on-line for the remainder of 1999. You will have free access to the full text of articles published in Teratology, as well as other information and services offered within Wiley Interscience. (Of course, this is for personal, not institutional use.)

Nancy also has a lot of interest in improving the look of the Journal. She has already engaged Lew Holmes, our Editor-in-Chief, and Bill Slikker, chair of the Publications Committee, in a dialog about design, including greater use of color and a new cover. Nancy also has plans for a long-awaited marketing campaign.

When the Society's leadership met with Nancy, we told her about our dismay over what we consider to be highly unfavorable aspects of our contract with Wiley. At the end of our meeting, she indicated that she would recommend to Wiley that the current contract be re-negotiated immediately. I am pleased to report that Nancy's recommendation has been accepted. We will be negotiating a new contract with Wiley over the next few months.

Dear Colleagues:

I'm happy to report that we had an extremely successful Annual Meeting this year. I have received a large number of positive comments about the excellent science and pleasant ambiance. My thanks to everyone who put so much work into the meeting. While it's impossible to acknowledge everyone, I want to especially thank the Education Committee, chaired by Melissa Tassinari, the Student Affairs Committee, chaired by Bob Parker, and our symposium organizers Bill Slikker, Rich Miller, Jerry Heindel, Tom Kundsen, Alan Fantel, Karen Augustine, Gary Schoenwolf, Jan Friedman axnd Anne Pastuszak. And, of course, thanks to all of you who came to the meeting with your best science. I understand that the timing of the meeting and its location were problematic for many but I was extremely gratified to see how many of you decided to make the Teratology Society's Annual Meeting your top priority.

Our professional staff, Tonia Masson and Clarissa Wilson deserve recognition for all of their hard work in making the meeting fun to attend and a financial success. I have already let you know by E-mail that we have fully settled our obligation to Keystone and are in solid financial shape. I am grateful to Tonia and Clarissa for their dogged perseverance in making this happen.

No list of acknowledgments would be complete without the name of Tony Scialli, our Past President. Tony did a terrific job last year, particularly in the area of finances. Tony made fundraising a priority. We had more sponsored events and awards, at less cost, than we have ever had at an Annual Meeting. As a result we had more money to spend on the scientific program and other activities relevant to our mission.

Where do we go from here? There are a lot of activities going on in the Society. Here are a few to keep your eye on.

Planning for next year's Annual Meeting is already well underway, as is selection of a site for the 2002 meeting (see Bob Kavlock's article in this issue). The meeting will take advantage of opportunities to partner with other societies.

Partnering activities need to occur throughout the year, too. One way to do this is by making our existing links to other societies more active. Karen Filkins has been given the task of coordinating liaison activities. Karen has also been named to the Genetics Committee within the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. This committee handles teratology issues but until now has not included a member of the Teratology Society. Karen's participation is likely to improve the level of expertise on the committee while increasing the visibility of the Teratology Society.

I would like us to be more active in sharing our collective expertise with other health professionals. Ken Jones, chair of the Public Affairs Committee has developed a format by which the committee can provide rapid comment on controversial papers in Teratology. The committee would review the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and put its conclusions in the context of existing literature.

There are opportunities to provide guidance to regulatory agencies, too. The Public Affairs Committee has placed substantial effort on improving the labeling of drugs used during pregnancy, an effort that appears to be moving forward within FDA. FDA is now developing a scheme for interpreting pre-clinical developmental toxicity data. The Teratology Society has the greatest concentration of experts in this area in the world. We will be exploring ways of providing this expertise to the FDA as they proceed.

Finally, we need to continue to stress the value of teratology research to funding agencies. We continue to participate in the FASEB Consensus Conference on Research Funding (thanks to Tom Knudsen and Elaine Francis for participating in last year's conference). We also need to make the most of opportunities to comment on the mechanisms of extramural funding, such as was provided in the blanket E-mail I forwarded to you on August 1. Together, we can move mountains.

I'm looking forward to my year of serving you as President of the Teratology Society.

Best regards,

George Daston, Ph.D.
1999-2000 President

Submitted by Bob Kavlock

Even before we left Keystone, plans were already well underway for our next meeting in The Breakers Hotel in West Palm Beach, Florida. While no plans are final yet, and the Program Committee has to be fully contacted, there are plenty of ideas for workshops, symposia and courses. The meeting will revert to the traditional format of the Continuing Education Course on Saturday and Sunday, and the meeting running Monday through Thursday. The March of Dimes Symposium will likely be on the topic of genetic variability and susceptibility to adverse reproductive outcomes, and the Wiley-Liss Symposium will be on angiogenesis. Both of these should present very cutting-edge research and I am looking forward to attending them already. Likewise, the Continuing Education Committee, which has selected signal transduction as its theme, will be providing us a view into another rapidly expanding research area. For those of you have submitted ideas for other activities (or who will do so in the very near future), the Program Committee will be evaluating them and recommending what can fit into the confines of the rooms and financial ability.

Given the success of the 4th of July workshops in Keystone, I am hoping to devote one afternoon to these more informal discussion topics. One of these workshops may be a long discussed joint session with the American Cleft Palate Association, and another will likely deal with interpreting development neurotoxicity test data. Another item for consideration based upon comments from the Keystone meeting and the major success of the student platform session, is to move this session to earlier in the week. Doing so will help eliminate some the "stress" the presenters accumulate throughout the week. If you wish to volunteer for any aspect of the meeting, be it reviewing abstracts or chairing a session, please drop me an E-mail (kavlock.robert@epa.gov) and I will add your name to my "black book."

In addition to planning the next meeting, steps are being taken to plan the venue and the partners for the out year meetings. One of my goals in continuing to meet with OTIS and the Neurobehavioral Teratology Society (NBTS) (and next year the Behavioral Toxicology Society as well), is to have a more integrated program, share each others abstracts, and find a way for mutual acceptance of registrations so attendees can attend any scientific session held in the venue. Obviously there are some hurdles to overcome with this, but there should be ways to work through them. NBTS has pledged to meet with us through at least the 2002 meeting (we will be signing that contract in very the near future), and probably in 2003. OTIS at this time appears comfortable in the developing relationship, and looks to be a long-term partner. Incidentally, the plans are for the 2002 meeting to be in a metropolitan area in the West, so that we can continue to evaluate the merits of meeting in a city and so that the venue can be rotated around the country. The 2003 meeting is tentatively targeted for somewhere in the Northeast US.

By the next newsletter, I not only hope to have the major elements of the Teratology Society 2000 locked up, but I also hope to have whet your appetite, and that you will be making plans to submit abstracts and to attend the meeting.

Submitted by George Daston

I am Soliciting your opinion about who should be the Warkany Lecturer for the 2000 Annual Meeting. The Warkany Lecturer should be someone who has made substantial contributions to the study of abnormal development throughout his/her career. The Lecturer need not be a member of the Teratology Society. I will be selecting the awardee in a few months. I have a list of names generated by an ad hoc committee two years ago, but I would also like to hear from you.

Please E-mail your
suggestions to

George Daston at daston.gp@pg.com

The Public Affairs Committee, led by Ken Jones, has just issued a position paper on endocrine disrupters. The effort to prepare this paper was led by Joe Lary. The paper concludes that a number of agents have the potential to cause reproductive harm through endocrine mechanisms, but more research needs to be done to determine whether ambient levels of these agents in the environment are posing significant risks. It's noteworthy that the National Academy of Sciences report on endocrine disrupters, issued a month after ours, came to the same conclusions. The committee has also finished a draft position paper on thalidomide, which is now being reviewed by Council and should be available on the web by the time this newsletter reaches you.

Ken Jones has also developed a mechanism for providing rapid responses to controversial papers that appear in the teratology literature. Several times a year a paper is published in our field that suggests that a drug or chemical to which people are regularly exposed is a developmental hazard. It would be of great help to physicians, counselors and industrial hygienists to have the opinion of recognized experts as to the significance of the new report in the context of the existing literature. Ken has developed a plan to provide that information by using a small team of experts to review and provide objective responses to controversial papers. The work products would be reviewed and approved by the Public Affairs Committee.

Phil Mirkes reported to Council that the recommendations of the Strategic Planning Committee are being carried out. Council thanked Phil and the members of the ad hoc committee for all of their hard work in developing the strategic plan and making it work. At this point, the work of the committee is over. Phil has been given the task of monitoring the progress of the plan over the next few years. Phil recommends that the strategic planning process be repeated at five-year intervals (the next iteration to be in Spring 2002), a recommendation that Council approved in principle.

John Rogers has been looking into ways to preserve and build the Teratology Society's capital through institutional investment programs that are available through many financial service organizations. The investments offered are low-riskÑmostly high-grade corporate and government bonds and money marketÑbut will provide for better growth of the Society's capital than the CDs in which we are currently invested. Council has authorized moving our capital into money market funds as the CDs mature. A decision on which long-term investment strategy to take will be made at the interim Council meeting in the Fall.

Checkout the TS WebBoard

The Teratology Society WebBoard is the forum on the internet for questions, discussions, debates and comments. The link to this area is at the bottom left of the Teratology Society's home page. All members are welcome to join in or just browse the messages. For example, are you re-evaluating your standard study designs? Want to benchmark with other companies on a specific issue? Need to determine a new and different method or technique? Just ask! It is easy to post messages or replies on the WebBoard. Just click the Conference you want to post a message, then click POST from the command menu at the top (and yes, spell checking is included). Want to reply after reading a messageÑjust click REPLY at the top of the message.

WebBoard is a commercially available program and its use is provided to the Teratology Society through the generosity of Information Ventures, Inc. (IVI). IVI is a medical communications and consulting firm headquartered in center city Philadelphia. The WebBoard is actually associated with the REPROTOX (Web site, as you will see if you click LOGOFF.

The following CONFERENCES are currently available:

¥ Administrative Comments (Suggestions and Requests to Improve the WebBoard)

¥ MARTA/MTA Hotline (The place to ask questions about DART issues)

¥ REPROTOX: Toxic Agents (Discussion of proposed new agents to be added to REPROTOX database)

¥ README 1st

¥ General Interest Items (Discussion of issues NOT specifically related to the Teratology Society)

¥ Regulatory Issues (Discussion of issues related to Regulatory Agencies)

¥ Societal Issues (Discussion of issues of interest to the Teratology Society)

¥ Techniques and Procedures (Questions and answers about techniques and procedures used by any Teratology Society member)

The MARTA/MTA Hotline and Techniques and Procedures conferences are very similar and will likely be folded into one in the near future. The WebBoard is also open to all members of MARTA, MTA, SOT, and other professional societies outside the USA. It only takes a few minutes to register and it's FREE!

To register:

1. Click the link on the home page called "TS WebBoard!"

2. Login as a new user

3. Select and read messages in the conference "README 1st"

4. Send an E-mail stating your real name, your WebBoard username (if different), and your member society or laboratory to David Wise (david_wise@merck.com) or the Web site committee.

5. Access to all private conferences will then be granted after confirmation of the information in your E-mail.

You don't have to remember to visit the WebBoard every day or week. One very useful feature of the WebBoard is that you can tell it to notify you when a new message is posted in one or all conferences (go to MORE... and click E-mail Notification). Alternatively, you can request that the new messages be E-mailed to you as soon as they are posted (go to MORE... and click Mailing Lists). Better yet, you can reply to those E-mails and have your responses automatically posted (go to HELP and read "Participating through E-mail"). Using the WebBoard has never been EASIER!

There are many of other neat options under MORE..., including searching the message or user base, paging and chatting with other users on-line. Login today to see what all the hype is about!

The Teratology Society held a contest earlier this year to generate students' interest in the field of teratology. We solicited proposals from students (at any level) to design and implement a student-oriented Web site called the "Just for Students Web Page." Proposals were scored in the following categories: content (50%), organization (25%) and appearance (25%). There were a number of good proposals and the competition was close. So close, in fact, that we decided to award an honorary mention to the second runner-up. The winners were announced at the Teratology Society meeting during the student luncheon. The honorary mention and an award of $150 went to Robert Vinson from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. The winning proposal and the award of $700 went to a group of students at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA. They were Anthony DeLise, Janice Walker, Peter Alexander and Cynthia Coleman. The students of the winning proposal are working to get the final version of the Web site on-line. Their Web site will include the "Sources of Teratogens," the "History of Teratology," the "Day in the Life of a Teratologist," "Meet the Students in Teratology," "Graduate Programs and Schools in Teratology," "Careers in Teratology and Related Fields," and a lot more! Look for a link to the "Just for Students" Web site on the Teratology Society Home page in the next couple months. Congratulations to the winning proposals! Special thanks to Merck Research Laboratories for sponsoring the "Just for Students" Web page.

(Join date of August 1, 1998-July 1, 1999)

Matitiahu Berkovitch	Carie McMahon
Kimberley Brannen	Eve Mylchreest
Suzan Carmichael	Derek Newall
Ibrahim Chahoud	Jeffery S. Nye
Betty L. DeLise	Terence R. S. Ozolins
Ursula G. Froster	Eniko K. Pivnick
Dorothy Greenbaum	Karen Roberts
Robert M. Greene	Timothy Robison
Thomas Bruce Grizzle	Meredith Rocca
Ronald Haun	David Rowitch
Victoria Hendrick	Barry Schifrin
Nafeesa Hunt	R. Woodrow Setzer, Jr.
Gloria Jahnke	Marilyn H. Silva
Diana Johnson	Kristina D. Spranger
Amy L. Lavin	Robert Vinson
Jean-Jacques Legrand	Mary K Walker
Ju Liu	Robert Wilson
Alexander Lyubimov	Gary Wolfe
Susan Maier	Angela Young

Submitted by George Daston

We received input from 52 individuals for the six potential Teratology Society logos that were displayed at the Annual Meeting. The logos, which are still on the Web site, were of two types. The artwork for the first is a stylized mother and child, and for the second is a highly abstract embryo. Many thanks to James Ricks for the first set. The second set was the work of a professional logo designer. There were 18 commentors who preferred the first type (images 21ø23 on the web)Ñthe logo labeled as number 22 was the favorite among this group. The abstract embryo (images 24ø26 on the web) garnered 29 positive comments, with number 25 being the favorite. Five people suggested that the Society keep the old logo.

Many of the comments indicated to me that people have strong feelings about the proposed logos, both positive and negative. The universally positive comments had to do with including "Birth Defects Research" on the logo, and in having some language pertinent to our mission. I am passing along the gist of these comments, positive and negative to the designers of the logos for potential revisions.

Given the extent of feeling expressed about the logos, I am unwilling to make a decision about it based on the opinions of only a fraction of the membership. Accordingly, I would like to hear from more of you. We will try to get revised logos onto the Web site as soon as possible. Please let me know your comments. There is a hotlink from the Web site to my E-mail to make it easy for you to reach me. Based on the number and content of your comments, we will either adopt one of the new logos in the next few months or we will modify the existing logo with the language that everyone has liked (so far). If we go the latter route, we will schedule some time at next year's Annual Meeting to talk about how to proceed with the logo.

Sidney Q. Cohen

President, 1965ø1966

¥ Advanced Database Systems
¥ Elsevier Science, Inc.
¥ EMBI Tec
¥ Fraser Williams (Data Systems)
¥ Hamilton-Kinder, LLC
¥ Hamilton Thorne Research
¥ Huntingdon Life Sciences
¥ INSTEM Life Sciences
¥ IIT Research Institute
¥ John Wiley & Sons
¥ Quintiles
¥ San Diego Instruments, Inc.
¥ Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, Ltd.
¥ Sierra Biomedical, Inc.
¥ TherImmune Research Corporation
¥ Toxicology Research Laboratory

Submitted by George Daston

FASEB's Office of Public Affairs has prepared a series of illustrated articles on scientific advances, to promote an understanding of how basic research leads to disease prevention or treatment. The intended audience is the lay public and educators. Articles in the series have been sent to members of Congress and their staffs, the press, think tanks, patient advocacy groups, textbook publishers and state education associations. The articles are available to us in pamphlet or electronic form.

Titles include:

¥ Blood Safety in the Age of AIDS

¥ The Polymerase Chain Reaction

¥ Cardiovascular Disease and the Endothelium

¥ Helicobacter pylori and Ulcers: a Paradigm Revised

¥ Cloning: Past, Present and the Exciting Future

You can see a full list of titles and access the articles at www.faseb.org/opar/opar.html.

FASEB is looking for feedback on the effectiveness of these articles and for ideas on new topics. You can communicate with FASEB's Office of Public Affairs. I encourage you to consider how teratology might be presented in such a format. If you decide to submit an idea, please copy me on your E-mail (daston.gp@pg.com). If there is enough response it may be possible to organize a group effort to prepare an article for the series.

The Teratology Society is pleased to have provided the individuals below with Travel Awards for the 39th Annual Meeting in Keystone, Colorado. This would not have been possible with out the support of Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Eli Lilly and Company, Middle Atlantic Reproduction and Teratology Association, Midwest Teratology Association and contributions received on behalf of Larry Wetzel.

Kiyoshi Antaku	Janee Gelineau-Van Waes**
Kim Brannen	Katharine Haberstroh
P. Lamont Bryant	Wafa Harrouk*
Stephanie L. Burst*	Tyra M. Leazer
Jerry L. Campbell	Thomas A. Lewandowski
Jeff Charlap	Jennica Lutz
Sophie Choulika**	Masato Ohta
Ron Donahue	James Ricks
Jodie Y. Duffy	Jan B. Smith
James P. Franciosi**	Robert Vinson
	* Eli Lilly Travel Award Recipient ** Wetzel Travel Award Recipient

E. Sidney Hunter, III, Ph.D.
USEPA
Clarke Fraser Award

P. Lamont Bryant
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Marie W. Taubeneck Award

Jan B. Smith
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Wilson Award

Sophie Choulika
Massachusetts General Hospital
Wilson Award