Pictured are: David Pollock, Ph.D.; Elizabeth Brown, Ph.D.; Mary-Ann Bjornsti, Ph.D.; and Louis Justement, Ph.D.Several UAB faculty recently visited Washington D.C. to participate in Capitol Hill Day with the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). “Once a year, FASEB—a clearinghouse for scientific professional societies—organizes a Capitol Hill meeting day where representatives from societies under its umbrella will come to Washington to meet with staffers from congressional offices to advocate for a sustainable growth in funding for the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Veterans Affairs Medical and Prosthetic Research Program,” said Mary-Ann Bjornsti, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology.
FASEB represents 27 scientific societies and more than 120,000 researchers. According to its website, representatives from 21 of FASEB’s member societies held meetings with more than 100 congressional staff members to advocate for science funding at this year’s Capitol Hill Day.
Attendees from the School of Medicine faculty were Bjornsti, president of the Association of Medical School Pharmacology Chairs and representative of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; David Pollock, Ph.D., professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology and president of the American Physiological Society; Louis Justement, Ph.D., professor of Microbiology and chair of the FASEB subcommittee on Policy and Government Affairs; and Elizabeth Brown, Ph.D., professor of Pathology in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology.
The four met with staff from the offices of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), along with the offices of Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL6), Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL2) and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL7).
“It’s hard to know if our meetings had any effect, but there’s the feeling that had this Capitol Hill Day not been going on, there would be more talk to cut the budgets,” Pollock said. “I think it helps having constituents of Alabama talking to our elected officials about issues they believe are important.”