Policy & Advocacy

Guest post by the Alliance of Genome Resources. If you want to help the Alliance please take a short survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GSA-AllianceSurvey Six of the founding members of the Alliance of Genome Resources (Saccharomyces Genome Database, WormBase, FlyBase, Zebrafish Model Organism Database, Mouse Genome Database and the Gene Ontology Consortium) attended GSA’s The Allied Genetics…

Last week at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins provided an overview of model organism support from his agency. Collins used a new analysis performed by NIH staff to address concerns expressed by many of the model organism researchers gathered at TAGC, particularly a 2015 analysis by Michael…

Model Organism Databases (MODs) and the Gene Ontology Consortium play a crucial “behind-the-scenes” role in the work of model organism geneticists and many other biomedical researchers. This guest post by the newly-formed Alliance of Genome Resources announces the group’s intention to integrate the efforts of the MODs and other genome resources. You can learn more…

Update: This letter of support received 11,078 signatures and has been presented to Dr. Francis Collins. Thank you for your interest. Continue to follow GenestoGenomes.org for updates on this issue.  Leaders of several model organism communities, working with the Genetics Society of America (GSA), have come together to write a Statement of Support for the…

The House Appropriations Committee completed a review of its fiscal year (FY) 2017 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Activities (CJS) spending bill, which provides the budget for the National Science Foundation (NSF). This bill includes language that supports the peer review process carried out by NSF in its funding process. The committee also refrained from any mention…

Back in December, we wrote here about a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Labor that would mandate that postdocs earning less than $50,440 per year would be eligible for overtime pay at 1.5 times their hourly rate. This week, the Department of Labor released its revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The…

I have always been passionate about science and outreach is something I think I’m good at. So when I received an email from GSA saying I was on the shortlist for a very important advocacy and outreach event, I thought about how I might be the best scientist to represent GSA. I drafted the following…

A couple of weeks ago I presented a poster at an unusual event, entitled “Wasteful” Research? Looking Beyond the Abstract which was sponsored by the Coalition to Promote Research (CPR) and the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF).  It was unusual (at least in my experience) for two reasons. First, because I was accompanied by…

Last night, a milieu of scientists, Congressional staffers, members of Congress, and representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) filled the banquet room of the Rayburn House Office Building to show how investments in STEM research and education are fueling American innovation. Among those scientists was GSA member Ahna Skop, an Associate Professor of Genetics and…

The White House National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) has developed a pair of portals to connect undergraduates and graduate students to Federally-sponsored opportunities. These resources compile programs across federal agencies, which may be searched or browsed by discipline, location, and more. STEMUndergrads.science.gov includes listings for undergraduate fellowships, scholarships, courses, internships,…

  Advocating for Model Organism Research This month, GSA member Jeff Leips (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) packed up a few his fruit flies and brought them to the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. There he joined other researchers, including David A. Scholnick of “shrimp on a treadmill” fame to present at the Wasteful Research?…