Minutes of the 35th Annual Business Meeting
of the American Society for Neurochemistry
August 17, 2004, New York City, New York

(Note: Written reports, when provided, submitted by the Officers and Committee Chairs will linked to these minutes in the near future.)

The Business meeting was held on August 17, 2004 in the Jade Room in the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel. It was called to order at 6:00 PM by Dr. George DeVries who welcomed everyone to the 35th annual business meeting of the ASN.

In Memoriam
ASN President Dr. George DeVries read the names of ASN members who had died within the last year. They were Dr. Martin Larrabee who died on June 18, 2003, Dr. Pierre Morell who died on July 15, 2003 and Dr. Frederick E. Samson who died on April 15, 2004. The president asked for a moment of silence for all of these individuals.

Officer Reports

President's Report - Dr. George DeVries
Dr. DeVries began by thanking the members present for attending the business meeting. He stated that the past year has been busy and that we have accomplished quite a few things. He has submitted a written report that is posted on the web so that he will just highlight his report.

Future annual meetings: Dr. DeVries stated that the meeting sites and times have been set for the next three years. The 2005 meeting will be held on June 25-29 in Madison, Wisconsin, the 2006 meeting will be on March 11-16 held in Portland, Oregon and the 2007 meeting will be a joint meeting with the ISN that will be held on August 19-25, 2007 in Cancun, Yucatan. He stated that planning the meetings several years ahead has been a tremendous benefit to the Society because the members are able to plan ahead, we are able to make better contracts with the hotels and we are able to publicize the meetings better. He said that it is not too soon to be thinking about 2008 and 2009.

Extra Council meeting: The Council met at the Society for Neuroscience where several decisions were made.

Treasurer-Elect and Secretary-Elect: In order to make the transition of the offices of Treasurer and Secretary smoother the offices of Treasurer-Elect and Secretary-Elect were formed by votes of the members. Dr. DeVries announced that these new positions were filled by Dr. Jean Merrill as Treasurer-Elect and Dr. Gary Gibson as Secretary-Elect.

Committee Appointments: Dr. DeVries stated that he spent a large amount of time in reformatting the composition of the standing committees. He stated that in the past committee members and chairs did not have terms so that it was not clear what a term was and when a member could be expected to rotate off the committee. He felt that it was essential for the vitality of the Society to include rotate members through the committees so that as many members as possible could participate in committee service. He set up the terms of the new members so that half of the members will rotate off at the end of two years. He also has asked the Nominating Committee to take upon the responsibility of identifying new members to fill positions on the standing committees. He asked that if members are interested in participating in committees to contact Wendy Macklin, the President-Elect, Regina Armstrong, the Chair of the Nominating Committee, him and express your interests.

He decided to combine the former Inter-American Cooperation Committee and the Young Latin American Scholars Committee to form the Committee for the Advancement and Encouragement of Neurochemistry in Latin America (CAENLA). Dr. DeVries stated that CAENLA under the direction of Oscar Bizzozero has been very successful in raising funds to help Latin American scholars attend the meeting and work in laboratories in the US. He acknowledged the support from ISN's CAEN committee, funds raised from Aventis by Dr. Jean Merrill, and a generous donation from Dr. Nicolas Bazan.

He also formed a new committee called the President Advisory Committee, chaired by Pam Knapp, with the responsibility of making the society more viable and unique.

ASN/ISN Mixer at SfN Meeting: In order to publicize the ASN and ISN a mixer was held two nights at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans. It was well attended and will be held again this year at the SfN meeting in San Diego.

Important Future Issues: Dr. DeVries stated that increasing the number of dues paying ASN members remains an important issue. It is an important to find a stable source of funds for the CAENLA initiatives. He stated that he has asked Jeff Yao to head up a placement service.

Annual Meeting Innovations: He announced that for the first time a news service covered the meeting. Another innovation was the conversation room. He stated that the meet the speakers luncheons were a success that helped the young attendees to meet the speakers and the speakers enjoyed talking with the members. He said that the oral sessions that allowed young members to present have been popular. He said that he thought the number of symposia were the right number.

Dr. DeVries closed his report by reminding everyone to fill out a meeting questionnaire.

Treasurer's Report - Dr. Lynn Hudson
Dr. Hudson reminded the members that the ASN's greatest liability is the annual meeting and that the budget from last year's meeting demonstrates the potential problem. She stated that the ASN's assets tend to be about $400,000 but that every year over $200,000 are moved in and out of the Society's account to cover the annual meeting. Dr. Hudson informed the members that the last year's meeting in Newport cost the Society $59,794 more than it brought in from registrations and donations so that the Society lost approximately 8% of its assets.

Slide 1	Slide 2	Slide 3

Dr. Hudson presented a spreadsheet that illustrated the fact that although support for last year's meeting was good the problem was that of the 437 registrants that attended the meeting 127, or approximately 1 in 3, were non-member speakers that did not pay registration. She stated that this year's meeting is in better financial state in that there are 590 registrants with only 75 complementary registrations.

Slide 4	Slide 5	Slide 6

Dr. Hudson stated that there are ways to reduce meeting costs and increase meeting income in order to keep the Society and its meetings. These include maintaining the number of symposia at the current levels, holding the line on the number of complementary registrations that are provided, using more web-based methods to distribute notices and programs, and looking into reducing the food and entertainment costs. She reminded the members that session organizers that have NIH grants can apply for supplementary funds to support their sessions. She acknowledge Dr. Scott Barnum for acquiring $7,500 to support his session through this means. She mentioned the possibility of a Society journal that could, in the future, yield funds for the Society. Additionally, she reminded the members that the ISN has several programs to help neurochemists such as the CAEN committee, chaired by Dr. Steve Pfeiffer, that provided $10,000 to Latin American scientists for travel support to the meeting.

Dr. Hudson acknowledged Dr. Nick Bazan for his generous support that paid for the registration of several Argentinean members. She acknowledged Dr. George Siegel, editor-in-chief of the Basic Neurochemistry text, for committing funds from the book's royalty funds to support young investigators' travel and the Basic Neurochemistry Lecture.

Dr. Hudson praised Ms. Sheilah Jewart, ASN's business manager, for her creative efforts in keeping meeting and operating costs as low as possible.

Finally, Dr. Hudson recognized Dr. Jean Merrill, of Aventis, for her extraordinary service to the Society in raising funds for the meetings. Dr. Hudson stated that, "Never has one woman done so much for the service of our society." She announced that through the efforts of Dr. Merrill, Aventis has donated $40,000 toward several ASN programs.

Slide 7

Secretary's Report - Dr. David Shine
Dr. Shine stated that the efforts of the Secretary's office included communications with the members in amending the Bylaws to create the new positions of Secretary-Elect and Treasurer-Elect and holding the elections to fill these positions. He stated that though there were provisions for paper or fax ballots, all of the votes were casts by the internet.

Dr. Shine announced that the ISN has made the decision to change the format of the Neurochemistry News that publishes the newsletters of the ISN and its sister societies, including ASN's newsletter. Beginning with the June 2004 issue much of the content will be online with a short 4-page newsletter that highlights the various societies' events.

Dr. Shine stressed that with the move of most of the ASN's communications to online format that it is important for members to keep their email addresses current. He asked everyone present to check that their email addresses in the online directory are correct.

35th Annual Meeting Reports:

2004 Program Committee - Dr. Bob Ledeen
Dr. Ledeen reported that a near record number of registrants, close to 600, are attending the meeting. He said that his committee, in response to the suggestions of the membership, had reduced the number of sessions and scheduled more time for posters. He thanked the organizers of the sessions and his committee for actively working to make the scientific meeting a success. He thanked Dr. George DeVries for his leadership, Dr. Bob Gould for heading up the local host committee, Dr. Lynn Hudson for advising on the meeting finances, and Ms. Sheilah Jewart for her endless source of energy and inspired ideas in planning and running the meeting in a frugal manner.

Dr. Ledeen acknowledged two other session organizers, in addition to Dr. Scott Barnum who raised funds from the NIH. He said that Dr. Eng Lo and Dr. Ephraim Yavin also raised funds and that he expected that others would also do so. He stressed that this is an effective way of supporting the meeting.

Dr. DeVries thanked Dr. Ledeen for organizing an excellent program.

2004 Local Host Committee - Dr. Bob Gould
Dr. Bob Gould thanked his committee and Ms. Sheilah Jewart for helping in organizing the event and thanked the members for coming.

Communication from the President of the International Society for Neurochemistry - Dr. Arne Schousboe

Dr. Schousboe began by saying that he has enjoyed the meeting immensely and that it has a great program and is efficiently organized.

Dr. Schousboe announced that the next ISN meeting would be held jointly with the ESN on August 21-26, 2005 in Innsbruck, Austria. The chair of the local host committee is Dr. Alois Saria and the program chair is Dr. Phil Beart. He stated that the scientific program was almost complete and would be posted on the website (www.isn-esn2005.at) soon. The registration will be just under 400 Euros. With regards to the venue he said that Innsbruck is a charming city with excellent conference facilities and that Austria is one of the more affordable nations in Europe. He quipped that statistically speaking, August is one of the better months for good weather in Innsbruck.

With regards to the joint meeting of the ISN and ASN in Cancun in 2007, Dr. Schousboe stated that the contract with the convention center was signed and that the facilities will be very good.

Dr. Schousboe closed with inviting the members of the ASN to the ISN/ESN meeting in Innsbruck.

Standing Committee Reports

Basic Neurochemistry Editorial Board
In the absence of Dr. Seigel, editor-in-chief of the Basic Neurochemistry text, Dr. DeVries read his report.

Dr. DeVries reported that 9,205 copies of the 6th edition of the the Basic Neurochemistry text have sold. Additionally, 363 CDs have sold. The 7th addition is for Fall 2005 is well in progress. The editorial board, in addition to Dr. Seigel, consists of Drs. Wayne Albers, Scott Brady, and Donald Price. New to the 7th edition is the addition of section editors. They are Nicolas Bazan, Joyce Benjamins, Joseph Coyle, Jean DeVellis, Stephen Fisher and Sangram Sisodia

Bernard Haber Award Committee - Dr. Nicolas Bazan
As background Dr. Bazan stated that beginning at the Denver meeting the officers and council thought that it was important to open doors and build bridges with Latin American scientists. At the same time they thought that it was important to recognize persons that had worked to developed friendships, interactions, and meetings with Latin American and other scientic societies. To do so Dr. Bazan suggested that an award be established to honor such members and name it in honor of Dr. Bernard Haber who has done so much for the Society. A committee has been established and an announcement has been posted for an award to be presented at the 2005 meeting.

CAENAL - Dr. Marta Antonelli
Dr. Antotelli reported that the committee received 14 applications from 4 Latin American countries for the Young Latin American Scholars Award. Six awards were given to 5 graduate students and 1 postdoctoral fellow.

The program has been very successful. Three of last year's awardees have gained postdoctoral positions in the USA and 3 papers have been published resulting from work associated with the award support.

The committee met and worked on a means to better distribute a list of ASN laboratories interested in hosting a YLAS awardee and worked on the eligibilty requirents.

Dr. Antotelli thanked Dr. Jean Merrill, of Aventis, Dr. Nicolas Bazan, and the CAEN committee of ISN for their generous support for travel funds for Latin American scholars to attend the annual meeting.

Dr. DeVries also thanked the ISN's CAEN committee for its support of young investigators from Latin America to attend the annual meeting.

Internet Committee - Dr. Eric Klann
Dr. Klann, who had just taken over the committee, stated that the new committee has just met and has tossed around ideas for the website. He asked for suggestions to improve the web site.

Jordi Folch-Pi Award Committee - Dr. Joe Eichberg
Dr. Eichberg began his report by reminding the members that the Jordi Folch-Pi Award was established to recognize young investigators who have made striking advances in the field of neurochemistry. He stated that the committee was fortunate in receiving 9 nominations to work from. He announced that the winner of this year's award is Dr. Lucia Notterpek, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida. The committee met earlier in the week and discussed means to increase the endowment for the award so that the amount could be increased. He thanked the committee for their work and good judgement. He ended by reminding the members that it is not too early to be thinking about nominations for next year.

Marian Kies Award Committee - Dr. Rick Cohen
Dr. Cohen thanked the previous chair, Dr. Chandross, for help his transition to the chair of the committee.
The committee received 7 top notch nominations that were ranked according to criteria set up by the committee. He said that the scores were very close. Michael Fox was chosen by the committee to receive this year's award.

Dr. Cohen stated that the committee will work on a means to improve the application procedure by establishing a downloadable pdf file on the website.

Membership Committee - Dr. Carmen Sato-Bigbee
Dr. Sato-Bigbee announced that 76 new members have been added to the ASN since the last meeting but that the committee wishes to increase this number. To increase the membership the committee has considered providing a one-year free membership to recent graduates. Another idea is the link web pages of journals directly to the membership web page of the ASN. The committee also suggests that the scientific program of the annual meetings be sent to departments of neuroscience and graduate programs to announce the meeting. Finally, she suggests that the meeting announcement could be posted on the various company calendars.

Nominating Committee - Dr. Regina Armstrong
Dr. Armstrong announced that the new Secretary-Elect and Treasurer-Elect would serve in those capacities for the next year and then assume their respective positions in 2005. She stated that the Society owes a debt of gratitude to the 4 candidates for accepting the nominations and their willingness to serve as officers of the Society. She also thanked Dr. Lynn Hudson and Dr. David Shine for helping in answering the nominees' questions. She thanked Dr. Shine for his efforts in setting up the electronic ballots.

Dr. Armstrong reminded the members that next year the Society will be electing a President-Elect and new members of Council. She invited members that wish to serve to contact her.

Presidential Advisory Committee - Dr. Pamela Knapp
Dr. Knapp stated that the committee's charge is to maintain and increase membership and add value to being a member. She noted that the committee is made up of representatives of all classes of ASN members. Two areas of discussion have been how to keep members vested in the Society and its meeting and how to keep the meeting friendly and accessible to young investigators. She noted that some of the committee's suggestions have been incorporated into the current meeting. One idea is to showcase a specific topic with 2 to 3 sessions dedicated to this topic at future meetings. She invited suggestions from the membership.

Public Policy and Education Committee - Dr. Monica Carson
Dr. Carson stated that the committee has two major tasks; organize a forum to educate laymen about a subject of public interest and to publicize the Society to the scientific community. She said that her committee worked closely with the New York Multiple Sclerosis Society to organize a public forum on Multiple Sclerosis. The forum attracted 150 registrants and despite the weather and the attendees' disabilities most of them came. The response was very positive. She stated that the committee will work with a local group in Madison to organize a forum.

The second charge is to publicize the Society and the meeting. Do publicize the meeting the committee sent emails to potential registrants and flyers to departments and graduate programs. The meeting was announced on the SfN website.

Dr. Carson asked members to send her suggestions of sites that the committee can post notices of the upcoming meetings and any other suggestions for publicizing the Society and its meetings.

Standing Rules Committee - Dr. Jun Yoshino
Dr. Yoshino stated that the committee participated in writing the amendments to the Bylaws that established the positions of Treasurer-Elect and Secretary-Elect.

Young Investigator Enhancement Award Committee - Dr. Richard Quarles
Dr. Quarles thanked the committee for their work. He also thanked the previous chair, Dr. Tom Seyfried for helping establish a set amount of funds, $20,000, for the travel awards. He stated that there was some confusion as to how to distribute the funds and thanked Dr. DeVries and the ISN CAEN committee for helping out. The committee gave 34 awards of amounts that ranged from $400 to $1,400 that depended upon the distance traveled, number of previous awards, and the number of awards presented to one laboratory. He state that in the future the committee will coordinate its efforts with CAENLA and CAEN as well as working on ways to improve the application process and evaluation of need and eligibility.

Intersociety Liaison - Dr. Mary McKenna
Dr. McKenna began by acknowledging the previous liaison, Dr. Regino Perez-Polo for an excellent job. She announced that the ISN Council chose Cancun as the site of the 2007 joint meeting at their meeting in Paris. She noted that Wendy Macklin attended that meeting.

She read a list of the 9 young investigators from Latin America that were supported by more than $10,000 in funds the CAEN committee. They were Bersier (Argentina), Cerseto (Argentina), Diaz (Argentina), Garcia, Corina (Argentina), Garcia, Maria (Chile), Igaz (Argentina), Salvador (Argentina), Sanchez-Borzone (Argentina), Blasina (Uruguay).

Dr. McKenna stated that it is a time of very good relations between ISN and ASN. Both she and Dr. DeVries are on the council as well as Dr. Pfieffer heading up the CAEN committee.

She reminded the members that the ISN has started supporting focused meetings in the years when the biennial meeting is not held. These focused meetings will rotate through Europe, the Americas and Asia. The next focused meeting will be in the Americas in 2006. The ISN will provide $150,000 to support the meeting.

Dr. McKenna reminded the members that the ample travel funds will be available to young investigators to attend the ISN/ESN meeting in Innsbruck as well as the Cancun meeting.

36th Annual Meeting Reports:

2005 Program Committee - Dr. Doug Feinstein
Dr. Feinstein reported that the program committee has met several times. They have selected the plenary speakers who will be Klaus Nave, Stewart Lipton, Mary Beth Hatton, and Moo Ping Poo.

The scientific program will be organized around four themes: Building the Nervous System; Glial Mechanisms and Injury; Metabolism and Cell & Molecular Biology; Neurodegeneration and Disease. The committee has solicited proposals for session topics and will meet later to formulate the program.

Dr. Feinstein said that the only strong suggestion for the pre-meeting topic has been "-omics". If the members have other suggestions he welcomes them.

As of the meeting time 19 proposals have been submitted to total 21 counting the Folch-Pi and Kies Award sessions. He said that the deadline has been moved to September 1st. He invited additional proposals.

He urged people to fill out the exit surveys.

2005 Local Host Committee - Dr. Ian Duncan
Dr. Duncan gave a preview of the next meeting venue that will be held at the Monona Terrace on Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. Hotel accomidations include the Hilton at $139/night and the Concourse Hotel at $129/night. He thanked Ms. Sheilah Jewert for negotiating good hotel rates. He said that he was looking into a night at the American Players Theatre and asked for a show of hands of those interested. Dr. Duncan noted that Madison is served well by a number of airways and it is possible to easily drive from the Minneapolis or Chicago.

WIN Meeting Report - Dr. Sandra Hewett
Dr. Hewett reported that 45 attended the WIN Reception. The program was titled "Traversing the Scientific Tightrope: Discussions Concerning the Delicate Balancing Act Between Family and Career". The speakers where Dr. Toby Behar, Scientific Review Administrator, NINDS/NIH and Dr. Marianne Bronner-Fraser, Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology, Caltech. Dr. Harlene Anderson, Clinical Psychologist was the moderator.

She said that next year she plans to target graduate students and postdocs to discuss with a panel of senior scientists their issues.

Statements of Recognition and Gratitude

Dr. DeVries expressed his gratitude to Ms. Sheilah Jewert for her efforts in organizing and running the annual meeting. He noted her "boundless energy" and "grace under fire" as some of the qualities that made the meeting a success. Ms. Jewert received a great round of applause from the members for her service.

Dr. Juana Pasquini on behalf of her Argentinean colleagues thanked the ASN for its support.

New Business:
None

Dr. DeVries called for a motion to adjourn. A motion was made, seconded and passed by acclamation. The annual business meeting was adjourned at 7:44 pm