Linda Giudice

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Linda Giudice, MD, PhD, MSc
SRI President, 2006-2007

I served as the President of the SGI (SRI) during its 54^th year (2006-2007). This was a special time in science, medicine and technology. The human genome had just been sequenced, the Hap Map and the ENCODE projects were underway, bioinformatics, quantitative modeling of biological systems, and computational biology were coming to the fore, plans were set in motion for the human microbiome and epigenome projects, and social media and other communication modalities enabled rapid dissemination of information globally. These advances laid the groundwork for the “precision medicine” we know today.  But at the threshold of this “omic”s era, where were women’s health and reproductive science, and were we, as a Society, training and mentoring the next generation to participate in this revolution and carry it forward for the health and wellbeing of women world-wide? I firmly believed then, and continue to believe to this day, that the SGI (SRI) was/is THE place to accomplish these goals and continue innovation into the future. This was my mission and still is. What an opportunity it was to be the leader of this great organization, working with members and other stakeholders who appreciated these responsibilities and the promise of the reproductive sciences, and were committed to the great human potential in our field.

I had the privilege of working with an outstanding and dedicated Executive Council (EC) comprised of Gerson Weiss, Charlie Lockwood, David Olson (Secretary Treasurer), and Felice Petraglia; the SGI (SRI) Council comprised of the EC members and also Ronald Magness, Yusoff Dawood, Patrick Catalano, Joan Hunt, Carole Mendelson, and Murry Mitchell; and excellent support from staff members John Grossman, Ava Tayman, and Linda Gildersleeve.

We had several ambitious goals: increasing the SGI (SRI)’s reach internationally, augmenting efforts to be a year-round organization, increasing engagement of junior investigators and those in training to participate in and identify with the SGI (SRI) as an organization of great value for scientific exchange, networking, and advocacy, expanding the reach and content of our journal, and making our organization fiscally sustainable. To keep the flame alive in all these areas, we pushed forward the following agenda:

Governance Structure and Communications

• The Council voted to add the Chair of the Publications Committee to the Council as an ad hoc member who would be a liaison to the journal, which is independent of the Council.
• We established four new committees: Philanthropy/Development, Public Affairs, In-training and Membership, and formalized the Finance Committee.
• We established a zero-base budget building process for each cost center (line item) in future operating and administrative costs reviewed by the Finance Committee
• The semi-annual meeting of the Council was held in San Francisco where we initiated a strategic plan as our roadmap to facilitate moving forward.

Strategic Plan

David Olson, our Secretary-Treasurer, drafted the strategic plan and the Council worked to make it a workable, “living” document, which has undergone subsequent modifications in the years that followed. The highlights of the 2006-2007 SGI (SRI) strategic plan were to:

• aggressively recruit and retain regular members and in-training members internationally and offer them more opportunities to participate in the Society
• increase revenue-generating activities that promote the values and mission of the Society around the world, especially meetings such as the summit
• provide greater service to the communities our Society serves, thereby enhancing its international relevance and prestige and added value to members and advancing reproductive science
•  promote philanthropy

Corporate Advisory Board

We worked closely with our Corporate Advisory Board (CAB) to finalize their strategic plan, in parallel with the SGI (SRI) strategic plan. The goals were to:

• increase CAB membership, generally, and CAB scientist membership, more specifically
• increase recognition of the SGI and articulate its mission to external stakeholders
• increase CAB annual dues.

Carol Jane (Wyeth), Mark Molenda (Centocor), and Larry Staubach (TAP) met at ACOG to develop the CAB draft strategic plan, and Bob Auerbach (Cooper Surgical) gave additional input as did Leo Plouffe (Lilly) who succeeded Carol Jane as CAB Chair. Although with changing players over the years, the CAB has continued as an important partner, committed to the success and excellence of our Society.

International Organization and Year-Round Organization

Following the 1^st International Summit on Reproductive Medicine in Sienna in 2005, plans were made for the 2^nd International Summit in November, 2007 in Valencia, Spain, organized by Carlos Simon.  Plans were also set for the 2009 Annual Meeting in Glasgow, expanding our Society’s meetings from North America to the broader global community. Looking at what has transpired between 2007 and 2017, we indeed have evolved into a global organization in the service of research to advance women’s health.

The Journal

Major transitions in the Journal of the SGI (JSGI) occurred during my Presidency.  JSGI was first published in 1994, and its founding Editor-in-Chief, Roger Lobo, stepped down from this position in 2006. The Society’s leadership conducted a national search, and after a series of interviews, Hugh Taylor was chosen as the new Editor-in-chief. Council worked closely with the Publications Committee in negotiations with a new publisher, Sage, which published the first issue of the newly named journal, Reproductive Sciences, in January 2007.  I would like to acknowledge Phyllis Leppert for her hard work on achieving this change, and also Hugh Taylor for his continued leadership. And, our sincere gratitude is extended to the journal’s founding Editor-in-Chief, Roger Lobo.

Advocacy

We worked with colleagues in our sister societies to increase Federal funding for reproductive biology and medicine and women’s health research.  Gerson Weiss, Charlie Lockwood and I attended the National Retreat on Research Funding in Obstetrics and Gynecology on May 15, 2006 at ACOG in Washington, DC.  Leaders of our discipline’s research societies were in attendance, and we met with Duane Alexander, then Director of the NIH’s National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.  We addressed major research issues in obstetrics and gynecology, including where the specialty is going scientifically, the challenges for young investigators and, especially, clinician-scientists, and the severe limitations on funding availability for all in reproductive research. These challenges remain and in fact are even more pronounced today. We still have much work to do and cannot let this lapse. It is too important.

Communications

• I instituted monthly teleconferences of the EC that kept lines of communication open among our leadership and with staff, enabled regular assessment of challenges facing the organization and our discipline and strategizing towards solutions, and facilitating a continuum of activities throughout the year. Minutes were distributed for institutional “memory”.
• As President, I strongly believed in keeping the membership apprised of what was happening in the organization and soliciting their input and thus initiated monthly e-letters to all members.
• We posted NIH-relevant resources (tissue banks, databases, other) on the website.

With today’s social media and e-blasts and other lines of communication, our Society has come a long way to communicate among its leadership, with its members and staff, and globally with other stakeholders.

Membership

Expanding the role of in-training members was a high priority for our Council and me as the Society’s President.  We reminded members about the importance of nominating colleagues in their research groups, trainees, clinical fellows, medical students, and other to join the SGI (SRI). We made changes for in-training members to join committees and developed a new structure for registration fees:

• All trainees (undergraduates, fellows, basic and clinical) to be assessed the same registration fees.
• Advanced registration for In-training and non-members were set at $225 and $320, respectively.
• On-site registration for In-training Members and non-members were $390 and $485, respectively.
• In-training non-members could apply at the time of registration (either advanced or on-site) for membership and register at the reduced (Member) fee level if they completed an application form, a letter of support from a Society member and payment of the $50 membership fee.

Annual Meeting

Our Annual Meeting was held in March 2007 in Reno, Nevada with the theme of “Advancing Translational Reproductive Science”. Kelle Moley, Program Chair, assembled an outstanding program. The Post-graduate course was “The Immune System and Reproductive Processes”, and the President’s Lecturer was Irving Weissman, Professor and Director of the Stanford Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, who spoke on “Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine”. My Presidential address was on “Systems Biology, Reproduction, and Women’s Health – An Eye to the Future”. It was an exciting meeting with much science and networking, continuing to push the envelope of our Society’s portfolio of research and mentoring programs on many levels.

Kelle Moley successfully submitted through the SGI an NIH U13 grant to support our annual meetings, which has been renewed since then and continues to this day.

The 2007 Annual Meeting holds the distinction of being the only SGI (SRI) annual meeting held in a casino (yes!).  Despite this, we did not lose many attendees to the lure of the slot machines during the meeting, but we do not know what happened after hours…

Women in the Reproductive Sciences (WIRS)

Acknowledging challenges facing women in science and medicine, we laid the groundwork for a group called “Women in the Reproductive Sciences (WIRS)” whose mission was to provide mentorship to new female investigators about research opportunities, strategies in employment, equal opportunities for pay and negotiating resources, work-life balance, and more.  Some momentum was gained, and it was universally acknowledged that many of these issues are gender neutral, and some of these efforts have evolved into new initiatives in the Society, including the mentoring program.

Summary

Our Society has come a long way over the years and is different now than it was a decade ago and compared to several decades before that. I thank my colleagues in the leadership prior to, during, and after my Presidency, members of the CAB, the many dedicated members and members-in training and staff who gave their time, energy and enthusiasm to shape the future of the SGI (SRI), making it the “go to” Society for reproductive science and medicine research, mentoring, career development, and advocacy globally. While we have evolved and accomplished much, we still have work to do to advance reproductive science research and women’s health. I am proud to have been President, the fourth woman President, and part of the SGI (SRI) history, and I remain committed to contributing to its future!