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BOARD of DIRECTORS
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Timothy
G. Buchman (President)
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Prevention, recognition, diagnosis
and treatment of acute illness remain formidable
challenges. The conventional view of illness,
namely that disease states correspond to mechanistic
failure and therefore can be reliably remedied
with a specific appropriate intervention, persists
in medical teaching and medical practice. SCAI
offers a complementary perspective. A century
and a half of physiology, including the clinical
applications of physiology at the bedside of critically
ill patients, have shown us that health is not
a single state but rather a collection of states
that can be robustly accessed as adaptive responses
to an ever-changing environment.
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Timothy G. Buchman, Ph.D., M.D. |
SCAI and its
members hold that acute and critical illness are
better interpreted in
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| Department of Surgery
Washington University in Saint Louis St. Louis,
MO, USA |
the context
of complex systems science in which both health
and illness are emergent phenomena and moreover
that robustness |
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derives as much from organization
and dynamics as it does from engineered and |
purpose-specific corrective mechanisms.
The perspective is important to SCAI’s members
and also to the public. For our members, SCAI
is the leading global forum for complex systems
science in the context of acute illness. It is
the only forum that convenes mathematicians, modelers,
complex systems scientists, bench researchers,
bedside clinicians and industry partners to explore
the latest advances and discuss future strategies.
It is a crucial vehicle for fostering collaborations
across an especially broad spectrum of sciences
and disciplines. For our biomedical colleagues
and for the public, SCAI offers a fresh and important
point of view. Discovery and bedside application
of complex systems principles should allow early
recognition of deteriorating trajectories, rational
interventions and timely and accurate predictions
of outcomes for individual patients. That, in
turn, should allow for better care, better outcomes
and lower healthcare costs. Over the next five
years, SCAI will take the complex systems perspective
into the mainstreams of research and of the practice
of medicine. My goal is to support the organization
and its members in this effort. |
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Yoram Vodovotz (Vice-President)
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The formative years of my science
education were characterized by a paradox: my
mentors were generalists at a time before “Systems
Biology” existed as a term, yet they carried out
reductionist, hypothesis-driven research on various
aspects of inflammation, which we all know to
be central to the pathology of acute illness.
Seven years ago I embarked on a road to help unravel
this complexity, as part of a collaborative team
at the University of Pittsburgh and in other institutions.
Our work led us to form the Society for Complexity
in Acute Illness (SCAI), and I can say with much
pride and joy that this process has resulted in
a |
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Yoram Vodovotz, Ph.D. |
groundswell
of enthusiasm, creative energy, and novel insights.
|
| Department of Surgery
University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
As the first
SCAI Secretary and ICCAI co-organizer, I helped
move us along the first, necessary steps as scientific
society. |
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However, I
feel that SCAI is at a crossroads. |
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We have achieved sufficient success to stand on
our own as a scientific society, but still require
vigorous and energetic leadership in order to
advance the goal of bringing complex systems methods
to the field of acute illness. As Vice President
of SCAI, I would advocate for a clear set of mandates
to be pursued by the Society during the coming
three years. These goals would be solicited from
the membership, since the priorities are different
in the different countries in which we live. My
own priority is the goal of expanding the nascent
work done on Translational Systems Biology in
acute illness. Simply stated, Translational Systems
Biology is a framework in which translational
rather than basic insights are primary, mathematical
models are designed to facilitate in silico clinical
trials, simulations are appropriate for in vivo
validation, and mechanistic simulations of whole-organism
responses guide “-omics” studies. I would work
with the President and SCAI Officers to expand
the programmatic reach of SCAI, to increase the
visibility of SCAI in the academic, commercial,
and government arenas, and to increase our funding
base in order to assure our long-term future.
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Gary
An (Secretary)
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I have been interested in the
application of complex systems analysis to sepsis
and inflammation since 1999, working primarily
with using agent based modeling (ABM) to create
mechanistic models of the acute inflammatory response.
Coming from a clinical viewpoint, without a formal
research background, I was prompted by my frustrations
in treating my septic patients to try and understand
what issues were at the core of the challenge
of translating basic science knowledge into effective
clinical regimens.
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Gary An, M.D. |
Little did I
know that there was a revolution occurring in
the field of scientific |
| Division of Trauma/Critical
Care
Department of Surgery
Northwestern University,
Chicago, IL, USA |
inquiry, driven
by the same realization that the behavior of the
whole was more than the sum of its parts, that
there was an essential quality of the "system"
that was
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lost when the
system was taken apart. |
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However, as a scientist, I could not accept the
semi-mystical "throwing-up-of-the-hands"
that so often accompanies discussion of "complex
systems."
Complexity is not a dead end of understanding;
it is an entrance ramp to new paths of discovery.
We must use the tools that we have, often in new
ways, to find our way, and if the tools do not
yet exist, we must learn how to further their
making.
I believe the Society for Complexity in Acute
Illness is evidence of the potential of this new
roadmap. The multidisciplinary approaches that
meld the basic researcher, the mathematician,
the computer scientist and the clinician are fostered
in the SCAI environment. Discussion supersedes
dogma, discovery over doctrine, development above
dictates. We should lead by the quality of our
ideas; justify that leadership by the strength
of our accomplishments.
I am proud to have been one of the founding members
of SCAI, and hope to now to continue to serve
this organization and further its development
as one of its officers.
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Gilles
Clermont (Treasurer)
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The Society for Complexity
in Acute Illness is at a critical juncture. SCAI
plays a unique and important role that has not
been picked up by any of the larger scientific
societies regrouping critical care professionals
namely, bring sophisticated quantitative science
at the bedside. Yet, SCAI’s existence is fragile
and would be greatly solidified if SCAI could
count on a more robust income stream from interested
constituents, individuals and corporations. I
am proposing an improved financial structure,
improved communication with SCAI members, and
a systematic exploration of corporate sources
of sponsorship fro SCAI. |
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Gilles Clermont, M.D. |
These measures would go a long way
in assuring a healthier collaboration with our |
| Department of Critical
Care Medicine
University of Pittsburgh ,
Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
preferred scientific outlet, the
Journal of Critical Care, our current and future
corporate members and importantly, in |
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setting the financing of our yearly
meeting, ICCAI, on more solid grounds. |
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Some of specific things I propose are meant to
assure current membership, increase SCAI membership,
and greatly increase investment of corporations
directly in SCAI, Specifically, I believe SCAI
should introduce credit card payments of dues,
direct mailing to members of reminders on SCAI
letterhead, direct representations to potential
corporate members, direct publicity via existing
mailing lists of both quantitative and clinical
communities.
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