Minutes of the February 18, 2005 Meeting of the GTA Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Genetic Toxicology
Association met at BioReliance in Rockville,
Maryland on February 18, 2005. The members
thank Rama Gudi and her BioReliance colleagues
for planning the meeting and for their hospitality.
Members of the Board in attendance at the
meeting were Ramadevi Gudi, Devaraya Jagannath
(Chair), Dan Levy, Ofelia Olivero and Laura
Schild Hay. Dan Benz (Web Master), Gerry
DeVito (Secretary) and Greg Erexson (Treasurer)
also attended. Krista Dobo (Newsletter Editor),
Andrea Ham (Membership Chair) and Leon Stankowski
(co-treasurer) were unable to attend. Maria
Donner and Joe (Haizhou) Zhang did participate
in the meeting via phone conference. The
meeting came to order at 9:10 a.m. Jag provided
the agenda for the meeting.
Secretary's Report
Gerry DeVito reviewed the highlights
of the minutes from the previous meeting
and the action items for today's meeting.
The major item to be accomplished today
was final planning for the Spring Scientific
meeting. The minutes were approved on the
motion of Laura, seconded by Jag. Dan B.
will post the approved minutes from today's
meeting on the GTA web site, and Krista
will include them in the next GTA Newsletter.
Treasurer's Report
Greg Erexson presented his Treasurer's
Report on the finances of the GTA. The balance
of our 30-month CD as of February 18, 2005
was $18,000. The balance of our 10-month
CD was $5,000. The Wachovia Business Checking
Account balance was $4,558.98. Total assets
as of February 18, 2005 were $27,558.98.
The Fall meeting expenses created a net
loss of $1,122.68.
A decision to no longer pay for board member
dinners was made to try to cut back on meeting
expenses. Meeting speakers' dinners (evening
prior to meeting) will continue to be paid
by GTA. We will also want to monitor speaker
expenses more closely in the future.
Newsletter
Krista Dobo (Newsletter Editor)
was not in attendance but sent information
regarding the upcoming Spring Newsletter.
The deadline date for final additions to
the Newsletter will be March 21, 2005.
Krista would like to have the complete agenda
for the Spring meeting from the meeting
organizers and the minutes from today's
Board meeting from Gerry by March 1, 2005.
These items should also be sent to Dan B.
for posting on our website. The Letter from
the Chair and a Member profile are due March
21, 2005. Laura will contact either Bob
Young or John DeLuca for a profile.
Krista asked that Andrea send the mailing
labels to her by March 21, 2005. Krista
also made us aware that she has a new email
address, krista.l.dobo@pfizer.com.
Her previous email address will no longer
work after April 1.
It was mentioned that a photo of Skip and
George was taken at the Student Reception
at EMS last year. If this could be sent
to Krista she could possibly include it
in the Newsletter.
Web Site
Dan Benz, Web Master gave his update. Dan
will contact Tonia Masson from AIM/EMS regarding
access to the GTA site from the EMS web
site. We are not pleased with the location
of the link and Barry Ford has not been
able to help us thus far.
Membership
Andrea Ham, Membership Chair, sent her
information by email. We currently have
168 paid members. Andrea said that she has
some checks for Greg for dues and registrations
that she will mail to him.
Andrea also stated that the person at AI
DuPont Hospital in charge of the poster
easels and foam board would lend them to
GTA. We would need to provide transportation,
which she believes she can easily handle.
A caveat is that we cannot reserve them.
If the hospital has a concurrent function,
they would have first rights. The hospital
often uses a few boards, but Andrea estimates
they use all of them only once per month.
We will give this option a try.
We will continue to keep track of any meeting
attendance changes since the institution
of having only one mailing to announce each
Scientific meeting, i.e. just the Newsletter.
Andrea will need to send the mailing labels
to Krista by March 21.
It was suggested that we could send email
meeting announcements to our FDA and EPA
colleagues to attempt to increase awareness,
membership and meeting attendance.
GTA Meetings
Spring 2005
Maria and Jag are co-chairs for
this meeting. The topic will be 'Genotoxic
Impurities' scheduled for May 19, 2005 at
Clayton Hall. Speakers most likely will
be Krista Dobo (Pfizer/PhRMA), Skip Wagner
(BioReliance case study), Sandra Bell or
her designee (CFSAN colors and dyes), Tim
McGovern (CDER), Karin Bentley (DuPont)
and Bhaskar Gollapudi (Dow). George Lin,
our 2004 Student Travel Awardee, will also
present his work at this meeting.
Andrea will organize the dinner for the
speakers, possibly at the new Marriott.
We will be open to have exhibitors at this
meeting, Greg will take care of this. Greg
will also confirm our luncheon and break
food choices with Clayton Hall. Maria and
Jag will finalize the meeting agenda asap.
Post-meeting note: The title of the
meeting will now be 'Genotoxic Impurities:
Chemistry, Detection and Risk Assessment'
Rama will take our Spring Meeting agendas
to the SOT meeting in March. Gerry will
also give some GTA brochures to a Pfizer
colleague to bring to the meeting.
The new Marriott hotel on the campus is
currently open. Maria visited and detailed
her review to us in an email. We decided
to include the information about the hotel
in the Newsletter and on the web
site (Dan B. already has some information
there but will add that it is within walking
distance of Clayton Hall). We will also
mention that people can ask for the University
of Delaware rate at Embassy Suites and remove
the DuPont rate reference. Greg will check
with Jan O'Neill at U of D to see about
a possible discount for GTA members at the
new Marriott.
Fall 2005
Ofelia and Dan L. will co-chair
this meeting. The meeting will have a more
diverse set of topics so as to include more
academic/research interests and possibly
posters.
Post meeting note: Greg confirmed with the
University of Delaware for our Fall 2005
GTA
meeting at Clayton Hall on Thursday, October
20th.
University Outreach
Dan L. once again reminded the board
members to take a look at the list of universities
and their respective contact persons to
see if they know any of them personally.
Dan L. has a draft letter for us to personalize
and send out prior to meetings. Gerry suggested
that all GTA members (not just board members)
receive this draft letter and be asked to
invite colleagues in academia and research
to our meetings. Everyone agreed this was
a good idea. Dan L. will send his letter
to all current members.
EMS Student Reception and Travel
Award
Greg confirmed with EMS that we
would again sponsor the Student Reception
and Poster Session at the EMS meeting in
San Francisco in the amount of $500. Ofelia
offered to speak with David DeMarini about
the specifics of the reception. Dan B. said
that he is on the EMS Honors and Awards
Committee this year and that they will keep
us posted with the list of students and
abstracts for our selection of a Student
Travel Awardee for the September meeting.
Dan B. will forward this to Dan L. to take
a first pass for us.
New Business
We discussed Jag's idea to have
a GTA Award similar to the awards given
out at EMS each year. This could be for
influence or contributions in the area of
Genetic Toxicology. We will leave the criteria
open a bit for now but the recipient will
at least need to be a current or former
GTA member. The award will be called the
GTA Excellence in Science Award. The award
will be at the very least a nice plaque
depending on the current budget. The awardee
will be profiled in the Newsletter. The
nominations will be voted on by a committee
of GTA members. We will announce the idea
and solicit for committee members at the
Spring meeting. We would like to present
the first award if possible at the Fall
meeting.
We also spoke about the fact that all board
members may be acknowledged for their service
to the GTA with a certificate. Acknowledgment
of long-term service to the board and the
GTA, other than at the time the person is
retiring, should also be considered. This
may be discussed further at the next meeting.
Rama will ask Skip which book he would like
to receive as a gift for his chairmanship.
Gerry received a request from EMS for our
mailing list to receive the circular for
the ICEM meeting in San Francisco this fall.
Gerry passed this request on to Andrea.
The board would like Andrea to pursue this
and possibly negotiate a sort of trade of
lists so that we can have our meeting notices
sent to their members as well. Dan L. will
contact SOT to see if they would be interested
in doing something similar in the future.
But in both cases we would not want our
membership lists sold or given to anyone
else. Dan B. will see if we could put a
link to our web site on the SOT site.
Future Board meetings
Gerry will check to see if we can hold
the Summer Board meeting at Pfizer this
year. Other possibilities might be J&J
or NIH.
The meeting was adjourned, on the motion of Dan B., seconded by Ofelia, at approximately 2:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Geralyn L. DeVito, Secretary
