The ASAPbio Scientific Society Preprint Town Hall was held on Thursday, February 23, 2017 at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington DC (2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC). 

Scientific societies have long served researchers by providing them with opportunities to share unpublished data through poster and oral presentations at meetings. Today’s technology enables this sharing to flourish in the digital space as well as the physical.

The meeting featured scientist, funder, and society perspectives on preprints in the life sciences and details about the development of a next-generation preprint ecosystem. We also hoped to catalyze a discussion on how preprints can benefit scientific societies in the future.

Agenda (with links to video)

9:00am Welcome and scientists’ perspective – Ron Vale (UCSF), Cynthia Wolberger (JHMI), Jessica Polka (ASAPbio) (download slides)
9:50am Funder perspective – Neil Thakur (NIH) (download slides)
10:20am Coffee and refreshment break
10:40am Remarks by Patricia Flatley Brennan (NIH/NLM)
10:50am Next generation preprint service – Phil Bourne (NIH) via video conference (download slides)
11:20am Societies innovating with publishing and preprints (panel) – Erika Shugart (ASCB), Stefano Bertuzzi (ASM) (view presentation), Darla Henderson (ACS)
12:00pm Discussion
12:45pm Adjourn

Attendees (includes video conference participants)

First name Last name Organization
Blythe Alexander Society for Neuroscience
Elizabeth Austin American Association of Anatomists
Christina Bennett American Physiological Society
Stefano Bertuzzi ASM
Phil Bourne NIH
Patricia Brennan NIH/NLM
Janine Chiappa McKenna American Anthropological Association
Kara Coleman The Pew Charitable Trusts
Benjamin Corb ASBMB
Sara Cullinan American Society of Human Genetics
Richard Dodenhoff American Society for Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics
Sindy Escobar Alvarez Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
Jessica Foley Focused Ultrasound Foundation
Maryrose Franko Health Research Alliance
Michele Garfinkel EMBO
Catherine Giffi Wiley
Judy Glaven HHMI
Barbara Goldman American Society for Microbiology
Brooks Hanson American Geophysical Union
Darla Henderson ACS
Jennifer Holland Histochemical Society
Jessica Homa Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine
Barbara Jasny AAAS/Science
Rachael Lallensack AAAS/Science
Thomas Lemberger EMBO
Daniel Levin International Association for the Study of Pain
Patti Lockhart ASPB
Marsha Lucas Society for Developmental Biology
David Malakoff AAAS/Science
Joseph McInerney American Society of Human Genetics
Marcia McNutt NAS
David Nelson American Society of Human Genetics
Rebecca Osthus American Physiological Society
Jennifer Pesanelli FASEB
Meagan Phelan AAAS/Science
Chris Pickett Rescuing Biomedical Research
Jessica Polka ASAPbio
Claire Rawlinson BMJ
John Sack HighWire Press
Daniel Salsbury PNAS
Rita Scheman The American Physiological Society
Yvette Seger Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
Nick Shockey SPARC
Erika Shugart American Society for Cell Biology
Diane Sullenberger PNAS
Neil Thakur NIH
Ron Vale UCSF
Kevin Wilson ASCB/CLS
Nancy Winchester ASPB
Cynthia Wolberger Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine


Attendance does not constitute endorsement of any kind.