New communities for women scientists and industry scientists offer new opportunities to expand your network.
By Dale Eric Wurster, Ph.D., FAAPS, President
Have you been active in the AAPS Communities yet? There is a lot happening, and I would like to highlight some of the activities here.
Until earlier this year, all of the AAPS Communities were based on the scientific groups that had been AAPS sections and focus groups. I am pleased to tell you that we have now launched two wholly new communities: the System Compliance and Technology Solutions Community and the Women in Pharmaceutical Science Community.
These communities are different in that they are not related to scientific disciplines and issues, but rather other challenges facing our scientist members. As we developed the concept for the AAPS Communities, we realized that members turn to their networks for more than science, and we now welcome proposals for new groups like these with focuses that relate to your work lives and aspirations, including advocacy and career development. I am excited for the members who are leading these communities, and I hope you will consider proposing a community to the AAPS Board of Directors that would help you, regardless of whether you seek a network of members exploring a particular science or some other issue.
The System Compliance and Technology Solutions Community promotes communication between laboratory scientists and their business technology and compliance counterparts. This community discusses digital and electronic problems facing scientists and proffers compliant and innovative software, hardware, and instrument solutions.
The Women in Pharmaceutical Science Community supports women around the world by offering a place to connect and discuss challenges and opportunities specific to the pharmaceutical sciences. This community—which is an extension of the successful Women in Pharmaceutical Science sessions at recent AAPS meetings—will facilitate communication around career strategies, professional advancement, communication and interaction style, and more.
Members can propose new communities around broad topics or around specific problems facing a subset of scientists. Contact Maria Nadeau, senior manager, Communities and Leadership, for more information on creating and maintaining AAPS Communities. I encourage AAPS members to use AAPS Communities as a tool to advance their careers through problem solving and interaction with peers.
You can join as many AAPS Communities as you like, as long as you are an AAPS member. Pick the communities that fit the challenges you are facing today.
AAPS established the communities as a place where members can exchange knowledge and incubate new ideas. Members have been busy doing just that in the community discussions. For example, the Bioanalytical Community recently had a discussion on software for ligand binding assay data analysis. The In Vitro Release and Dissolution Testing Community recently discussed gelatin cross-linking and the tier-2 method. In both discussions, a member asked for input from the community, and I am happy to report that members responded.
In 2018, we began “Ask Me Anything” sessions on the communities. Our first three this year were well attended:
- Ask Us Anything about Pre-existing Antibodies. Four AAPS experts fielded questions about how to evaluate/report/describe unspiked selectivity results when several individual lots test positive for antidrug antibodies, higher variability in the assay versus pre-existing reactivity, comparing pre- and postdose titration values, immunogenicity assay for anti-PEG, criteria to include or exclude a particular sample in or from the cut point calculations, and much more.
- Ask Us Anything about PharmSci 360. The 2019 Scientific Programming Committee Chair, the Bioanalytical Track Subtrack Leader, and the Preclinical Track Chair were available for an hour to answer questions about the 2019 meeting Nov. 3–6. Participants posed questions about the nature of symposia, the type of data acceptable for poster submissions, suggested speakers for a programming submission, track themes, the nature of end-to-end sessions, discussion panels,
and more.
- Ask the Experts about Predictive Modeling. Five AAPS experts fielded questions that covered how modeling can benefit patients as individuals, assessing predictive performance, advantages and disadvantages to predictive modeling, what constitutes maximum predictive precision, and developing key questions, among others.
Keep an eye out for email notices announcing future Ask Me Anything sessions.
Have you ever wanted to contact a journal editor or an AAPS Newsmagazine author? The communities are a great place to accomplish that. The AAPS Journal Editor-in-Chief Ho-Leung Fung, Ph.D., has been posting about new articles of possible interest to relevant communities. This makes it easy for community members to learn of recent journal articles that relate to their discipline. This is also an opportunity to contact Dr. Fung. Likewise, AAPS Newsmagazine authors are posting on communities relevant to the topic of their cover articles. Again, community members learn of magazine articles that relate to their discipline and have an opportunity to discuss the articles with the authors.
Each community has a library where members can post resources. Members have posted such resources as the final agenda for the AAPS workshop Novel Approaches Targeting Brain Barriers for Effective Delivery of Therapeutics, an article Moving to a World Beyond “p<0.05,” a poster presentation on Evaluation of Use of Dual Paddles for Biphasic Dissolution Systems for Poorly Soluble Drugs, the FDA draft guidance Marketing Status Notifications Under Section 506I of the Federal FD&C Act; Content and Format, and slides from USP Chapters <232> and <233> Implementation Strategy. What a wealth of information!
AAPS committees are also using the communities to help plan AAPS PharmSci 360, career development offerings, AAPS awards and fellows, and more. While these communities are private for committee members only, they facilitate communication and cooperation among committee members and offer an easy way to keep abreast of what the committee is doing. Committee members can easily access documents, brainstorm ideas, and get information about upcoming calls. AAPS volunteers are learning that the communities help them plan programming to benefit all members.
As you can see, the communities offer a lot: knowledge exchange, a place to test out new ideas, a resource library, and the opportunity to network with other professionals. I thank our members who are actively contributing to the discussions and posting resources of interest.
If you have not yet joined a community or posted a question or feedback for another member, I urge you to get involved. Posting is easy, and our Community Manager Katie Baumer is happy to help new community members get started. Visit the AAPS Communities to see the latest discussions, learning opportunities, and AAPS announcements; find the community most relevant to your work; and start posting!