Messages from:
Division Chair
Division Chair-Elect
Division Program Officer
Division Secretary

Division Officers
Minutes of '96 Business Meeting
Student Awards
Candidates for Election
In Memoriam

DCE: 1997 Spring Newsleter


This Newsletter by Section


Message from the Chair

F.M. Anne McNabb


The DCE Executive Committee has been very active in working on a number of initiatives, including looking several years ahead in symposia planning and discussing changes in our Division elections.

The SICB 1996 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque was well attended and included many excellent endocrinology papers. Thanks to Bob Thommes and August Epple for their efforts in organizing and gaining NSF funding to help support the Division symposium "Developmental Endocrinology of Non-Mammalian Vertebrates." The symposium was well attended and well received. Many other members of DCE also worked hard on behalf of the Division. You will find them acknowledged in the DCE Annual Business Meeting minutes, so I won't repeat their names here. Congratulations also go to those who received our Best Student Paper and Poster Awards and Honorable Mentions.

The DCE Executive Committee has been very active in working on a number of initiatives, including looking several years ahead in symposia planning and discussing changes in our Division elections. I greatly appreciate their help and know there will be benefits to the Division in program quality, smooth transitions among officers, and in a number of other ways. In line with SICB Executive Committee efforts for the Society, we also will be developing "job descriptions" for the Division officers. We hope this will be helpful to Nominating Committees in their quest for candidates and helpful to officers-elect in assuming their positions. The members of the DCE Executive Committee are in agreement that we should have officers-elect who serve two-year terms for all of our divisional Executive Committee positions. (At present, this is the case only for the Chair-Elect).

However, to change our practice in this regard will require an amendment of the Division bylaws. At present, the bylaws can only be amended at the Annual Meeting and notice must be given to members at least 60 days in advance. Thus, in the Fall 1997 newsletter we will propose changing the bylaws to include officers-elect, followed by a vote on that issue at SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston. We also will review the bylaws to look for other changes that we would like to have Division members consider (e.g., allowing for mail ballots as an alternative to voting only at business meetings).

Also in line with efforts of the SICB Executive Committee, we are attempting to increase interdivisional interactions. A key example of this effort is in planning interdivisional environmental disrupter paper sessions or mini-symposia at future meetings. To help kick off this effort, we are pleased to announce that Theo Colborn (one of the authors of the recently published "Our Stolen Future") will attend the meeting and address some issues on environmental endocrine disrupters. In the interest of building the quality of our divisional programs, Bob Dores and Mark Sheridan have been working on a new "Trends in Regulatory Biology" idea, which will be described elsewhere in our section of the newsletter.

We have two DCE Executive Committee positions to fill in our elections this spring: Chair-Elect and Secretary. Our thanks to the Nominating Committee (Chair Frank Moore and members Duncan Mackenzie, Penny Hopkins and Kathy Flynn) for finding us such excellent candidates.

I hope all members of our Division will make an effort to recruit new members and encourage previous members to return to the Society. If any of you have questions or comments about our Division, please contact me by e-mail.

Message from the Chair-Elect

Bob Dores

Plans for the SICB 1999 Annual Meeting in Denver are underway. Mark Sheridan is organizing a symposium on the endocrine pancreas in honor of Dr. Erika Plisetskaya. We are considering co-sponsoring a symposium on environmental disrupters for the Denver meeting as well. For the meeting in 2000, a symposium on molecular evolution would be interesting.

Message from the Program Officer

Mark Sheridan

We also will introduce a new annual symposium series, "Trends in Regulatory Biology." The major aim of the series is to increase meeting participation.

The upcoming SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston promises to be an exciting one. The DCE program will include a symposium on "Evolution of the Steroid/Thyroid/Retinoid Acid Receptor Family," organized by Penny Hopkins and David Durica, as well as oral and poster contributed papers.

We also will introduce a new annual symposium series, "Trends in Regulatory Biology." The major aim of the series is to increase meeting participation. The symposium will be held on the morning of the last day of the meeting, and the program will consist of five to six invited speakers. The speakers for each "Trends" symposium will be the organizers of associated oral paper interest groups for the meeting. Each symposium speaker will be invited to give a 30-minute presentation on their research or to provide an overview of their interest group.

The Program Officer will have a revolving list of interest groups slated for each meeting. The Program Officer will invite individuals to organize an interest group session. The Division hopes to make a monetary contribution to the "Trends" symposium and will raise this as an issue at our business meeting in Boston. The DCE Executive Committee is preparing a list of interest groups that will be suggested to the members of the Division. Selection of interest groups for the SICB 1999 Annual Meeting in Denver can be refined at the business meeting in Boston. Some possible interest group titles that have been suggested to date are: reproduction, behavior, growth and development, metabolism, osmoregulation, environment/stress, neuroendocrine mechanisms, molecular evolution of hormones and receptors, and mediation of life history trade-offs. Please contact me if you have comments or questions.

Message from the Secretary

Henry John-Alder

Stacia Sower wants to relay to us that under "What's New" on the National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Animal Biology home page, we can find a new couple of paragraphs on endocrine disrupters/environmental endocrinology. A particularly nice feature here is that these paragraphs link directly to the Environmental Protection Agency endocrine site.

Several important new and continuing issues for discussion at the business meeting at the SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston are introduced in this newsletter. All members are encouraged to attend the meeting prepared to participate.

Minutes of the 1996 DCE Business Meeting

The business meeting and Hormone/ Chemical Disruption Interest Group meeting sponsored by the Public Affairs Committee combined forces and met together at the SICB 1996 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. The first half-hour was spent on a discussion of endocrine disrupter research, funding opportunities, and the need to have comparative expertise on grant panels.

DCE Chair Anne McNabb welcomed those in attendance, thanked Bob Thommes and August Epple for organizing the division symposium "Developmental Endocrinology of Non-Mammalian Vertebrates," and thanked others for their participation in the meeting by presentation of contributed papers and posters.

The Chair expressed appreciation on behalf of the Division to Program Officers Stacia Sower (who resigned in September to go to the National Science Foundation as a Program Officer) and Mark Sheridan (who assumed the position early).

Mark reported on the number of papers at the meeting and described some of the new program procedures for the whole Society. Stacia Sower described new postdoctoral opportunities at NSF and solicited input from the membership about a name change decision that would be made early in the year.

During 1996, the Chair consulted with the DCE Executive Committee by e-mail about a number of issues of concern to the Division. This seems to work quite well, helps inform incoming officers about the decisions, and makes for democratic decision-making.

Spring 1997 elections will be held for President-Elect and Secretary for the Division. Suggestions for candidates to serve on the Nominating Committee were solicited.

The efforts of the committee for judging Best Student Papers was acknowledged. The committee included: Lucia Magliulo-Cepriano (Chair), Tyrone Hayes, Cathy Propper, Jim Carr and Dave Borst.

Other members whose service to the Division was acknowledged include:

    Dave Norris who was recently appointed an Associate Editor of American Zoologist.

    Marty Schreibman continues to serve as a long-range member of the Editorial Board of American Zoologist.

    Hans Laufer is our divisional representative on the SICB Public Affairs Committee.

    Walt Dickoff is our elected representative on the Board of the International Federation of Comparative Endocrinological Societies. (Our second Representative is always the current Division Chair.)

Division funds were used to help sponsor three regional meetings: Western (Karl Nicol), Midwestern (Terry Barry), Eastern (Anne McNabb and Orion Rogers; co-sponsored by DCPB); an international symposium on metamorphosis (Dave Norris); and three symposia at the Albuquerque meeting: "Developmental Endocrinol-ogy of Non-Mammalian Vertebrates" - Bob Thommes and August Epple; "Biology of Lipids" - Lisa Crockett and Allen Gibbs; "Responses of Terrestrial Invertebrates to Variation in Temperature and Water Availability" - Jon Harrison and John Phillips.

Bob Dores, Chair-Elect, reported on symposium plans for future meetings and announced the Southwestern/ Western regional meeting for 1997 in Denver, organized by Bob Dores and Peter Thomas.

Symposium proposals for the SICB 1999 Annual Meeting in Denver are due April 15, 1997. Applications are available from Mark Sheridan (msherida@plains.nodak.edu).

Brian Tsukimura of our Division is the new chair of the SICB Graduate Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee (Mark Sheridan is the Past Chair). Brian introduced Sarah Woodley, the new DCE student representative on the committee. Sarah is a third-year doctoral student in Mike Moore's laboratory.

Several items from the SICB Executive Committee were reported, followed by a discussion of membership and ways of stimulating interest in the Annual Meetings. Beginning next year, the Society will allow members to select one or two primary divisional affiliations, but there will no longer be secondary affiliations.

It is hoped this will soften the lines between Divisions and help foster collaborative interactions. At the present time, DCE is the fourth largest division with 274 primary and 169 secondary members. (Note that it is difficult to tell what "secondary membership" means because most SICB members designate three to four secondary affiliations.)

Best Student Paper and Poster Awards

Student Papers

Best: Jeffrey D. Kittilson, North Dakota State University
"Polygenic Expression of Somatostatin in Trout Pancreas: Evidence of a Preprosoma-tostatin Encoding Somatostin-14."
J. D. Kittilson, C. A. Moore, and M. A. Sheridan. (#114).

Honorable Mention: Christopher M. Olsen, Texas Tech University
"Dose-Dependent Effects of Peripherally Injected Alpha-Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone on Habituation in the Texas Toad."
C. M. Olsen and J. A. Carr. (#117).

Student Posters

Best: Sarah K. Woodley, Arizona State University
"Elevated Androgen Levels During Summer Territoriality in Female Mountain Spiny Lizards (Sceloporus jarrovi)."
S. K. Woodley and M. C. Moore. (#488).

Honorable Mention: David H. Jennings, Arizona State University
"Embryonic Expression of Thyroid Hormone Receptors and Maternal Provisioning of Thyroid Hormone in the Direct-Developing Frog, Eleutherodactylus Coqui."
D. H. Jennings. (#369).

Honorable Mention: Creagh Breuner, University of Washington
"Seasonal Changes in Diel Rhythms of Basal and Stress-Induced Corticosterone Levels in White-Crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia Leucophrys Gambelii)."
C. W. Breuner, L. M. Romero, and J. C. Wingfield. (#485).

Honorable Mention: Kara Lee, University of Alabama - Birmingham
"Progress in Expression of Recombinant Molt-Inhibiting Hormone."
K. J. Lee, S. Qiu, M. Luo, R. D. Watson, and T. S. Elton. (#368).

DCE Candidates for Election

Candidates for Chair-Elect

Milton Fingerman

    Current Position: Professor of Biology, Tulane University.

    Education: B.S., Boston College, 1948; M.S., Northwestern University, 1949; Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1952.

    Professional Experience: Assistant Professor of Biology, 1956-60, Associate Professor of Biology, 1960-63, Professor of Zoology, 1963-65, Professor of Biology, 1965-present, Chairman, Department of Biology, 1966-69, 1980-85, Chairman, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Tulane University, University of Colorado.

    SICB Activities: Editorial Advisory Committee, Division of Comparative Endocrinology, ASZ, 1972; Chairman, Nominating Committee, ASZ, 1972, 1979; Program Officer, Division of Comparative Endocrinology, ASZ, 1977-78; Associate Editor, Journal of Crustacean Biology, 1980-85; Managing Editor, American Zoologist, 1981-95; Executive Committee, ASZ, 1981-95.

    Other Memberships: Fellow, AAAS, 1960; NSF Advisory Panel for Regulatory Biology, 1966-69; Editorial Board, Biology of Reproduction, 1968-70; Editorial Board, Journal of Interdisciplinary Cycle Research, 1969; Supply Department Committee, MBL, 1970-73; Chairman, Supply Department Committee, MBL, 1971-73; Committee on Animal Models for Biomedical Research - Invertebrates Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, NRC, 1972-73; Steering Committee, International Pigment Cell Conference, 1975-77; Editorial Board, Physiological Zoology, 1976-84; Committee on Marine Invertebrates, Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, National Research Council, 1976-81; Environmental Sciences Program Planning Council, Gulf Universities Research Consortium, 1977-78; Petrie Chair Visiting Professor, Technion, Haifa, Israel, February-May, 1986; Associate Editor, Pigment Cell Research, 1986-1991; Editorial Board, Trends in Life Sciences, 1986-present; Editorial Board, Indian Journal of Invertebrate Zoology and Aquatic Biology.

David Norris

    Current Position: Professor of Biology, University of Colorado.

    Education: B.S., Biology, Baldwin-Wallace College, 1961; Ph.D., University of Washington, 1996.

    Professional Experience: Assistant Professor of Biology, 1966 -70, Associate Professor of Biology, 1971-78, Professor of Biology, 1978-present, University of Colorado; University of Colorado Faculty Assembly "Excellence in Service" Award, 1996.

    SICB Activities: Member since 1964. ASZ liaison to AIBS, 1977-79; DCE Secretary, 1980-82; Best Paper Award Committees, 1981, 1984; Associate Editor of American Zoologist, 1996-present.

    Other Memberships: Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science (past president), The Endocrine Society, Herpetologists League, Sigma Xi (past president local chapter), Society for Neuroscience, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.

    Research Interests: My endocrine research has focused on thyroid, interrenal, and reproductive axes of fishes and amphibians with special interest in the role of environmental factors (natural and anthropogenic) that may alter the activities of these systems during development, sexual maturation, reproduction and aging. Recent studies also have focused on the neuroendocrinology of these axes as the transducer linking an animal to its physical environment. In the area of forensic botany, I do basic research and consulting work on the identification of plant food materials in gastric and fecal samples from homicide victims and related forensic uses of plants.

Candidates for Secretary

Nathan Collie

    Current Position: Associate Professor, Texas Tech University.

    Education: B.S., Zoology, Texas Tech University, 1977; M.A., Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, 1981; Ph.D., Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, 1984.

    Professional Experience: N.I.H. Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Department of Zoology and Cancer Research Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, 1978-80; J California State Sea Grant Trainee, Department of Zoology, University of California at Berkeley, 1980-84; Japan Society For Promotion of Science/N.I.H. Individual NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow, Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 1984-86; N.I.H. Individual NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, 1986-87; Assistant Research Physiologist, Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, 1987-91; Assistant Professor, 1991-1997, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, 1997.

    SICB Activities: Member since 1980. Primary Organizer, "Comparative Gastrointestinal Endocrinology: Integration of Function," ASZ symposium, Vancouver, B.C., 1992; Co-organizer, Southwest Regional Conference on Comparative Endocrinology/Satellite Symposium on the Physiology and Molecular Biology of the Vertebrate Ovarian Follicle, Texas Tech University, 1994; Awards Committee, Division of Comparative Endocrinology, ASZ Annual Meetings, 1992, 1995.

    Other Memberships: Sigma Xi, American Association of University Professors, Professional Member, American Diabetes Association, Texas Academy of Science.

    Research Interests: Hormonal regulation of intestinal absorption in vertebrates; GH and thyroid hormone function in growth, development and osmoregulation; mechanisms of action of regulatory gut peptides.

Lucia Magliulo-Cepriano

    Current Position: Assistant Professor of Biology, State University of New York - Farmington.

    Education: B.S., M.A. and Ph.D., Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

    SICB Activities: Member since 1987. Chairman, Best Student Paper Committee, 1996.

    Research Interests: Mechanisms of neural control of physiological functions, especially reproductive function and development; active in bi-national research sponsored by NASA and DARA (German space agency) on the effects of microgravity and zero gravity conditions on the development, maturation, and functioning of the reproductive systems and the role of neuroendocrine systems in these events.

In Memoriam
I. Alden Macchi

I. Alden Macchi, 74, Professor Emeritus of Biology and former Interim Chair of the Department of Biology at Boston University, died on August 6, 1996. Dr. Macchi was a longtime member of the Division of Comparative Endocrinology of ASZ/SICB. He organized a regional meeting in Boston in 1969 and an ASZ symposium entitled "Comparative Aspects of the Endocrine Pancreas" (American Zoologist 13: 567-709) in 1973.

Born in Bologna, Italy, he emigrated to the United States in 1929. Macchi served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from Clark University in 1947 and 1950 and his doctorate in endocrinology at Boston University in 1954. During his 35-year teaching career, he was a Chemistry Instructor at Commerce High School in Worcester, Mass., Assistant Professor of Physiology at Clark University, and visiting lecturer in zoology at the University of Sheffield, England. He joined the Boston University faculty in 1956 and was the Interim Chairman of the Biology Department from 1974-76. He became Professor Emeritus in 1983.

Macchi's research interests included the comparative aspects of corticosteroid biogenesis, regulation of adrenocortical and pancreatic endocrine secretion, the transplantation of adrenal glands and endocrine pancreas, and pancreatic tissue culture. He was author or co-author of more than 60 scholarly publications and a member of the editorial boards of several academic journals. He spent a sabbatical in the laboratory of Ian Chester Jones in Sheffield, England, where they worked together on the interrenal gland of elasmobranchs.

Professor Emeritus Robert Slechta, a longtime friend and colleague, remembers him as "particularly devoted to his graduate students - he developed close relations with them and was always very interested in following their careers." And, Slechta adds, "He was a meticulous lecturer. Always meticulous." Professor Ian Callard, also a close friend and colleague, describes Macchi as "an example to his students, a dedicated researcher, and a gifted teacher. He will be remembered for his friendship, sincerity, loyalty and supportive nature."

He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Joan Shiminski Macchi; his daughter and son-in-law, Deborah and Jeffrey Pittis; and three grandchildren.

The Boston University Department of Biology has established an I. Alden Macchi Award for Excellence in Integrative Biology, which is awarded annually to a mid-level graduate student. Memorial gifts may be made to the:

I. Alden Macchi Award Fund,
c/o Peter Gordy, Director, Stewardship
Office of Development and Alumni Relations
Boston University
19 Deerfield St.
Boston, MA 02215.


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