FASEB Meeting

Hey guys.

This doesn't have a huge amount to do with my actual research project, but it's related to the internship and it was a highly interesting happening.

I've had an interest in science policy for quite a while, so I've been trying explore that avenue of interest a bit while I'm here. Last week, I met with the APS's science policy coordinator and discussed a bit about what it means to be involved in science policy. It was very interesting to me and I expressed an interest in learning more. Today, I attended a meeting of FASEB.

FASEB (Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology) is a federation of various biological scientific societies, coordinating and publishing several tens of journals in nearly every area of biological science. A large part of the research they do is what's known as "basic" research, meaning research that doesn't have an immediate clinical or medical value. Rather, it's research that's done with less care for practical applications. The APS is one of the founding societies of FASEB.

So, today I sat in on a meeting of all of the various science policy coordinators of FASEB's constituent societies. They discussed issues like funding for basic research, congressmen who signed onto promises which were then broken, distribution of fact sheets to legislators, and other such things. It was a little bit over an hour in length and provided a lot of valuable insight into the workings of a science policy unit.

Next time, I'll get back on topic