Abstracts
The abstract deadline was October 18, 2019, with late-breaking abstracts being accepted until January 14, 2020. Abstracts are no longer being accepted for the 2020 Annual Meeting.
Poster Session Times and Author Attendance
Poster Sessions will occur from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Wednesday, corresponding with ToxExpo hours. Authors are required to display their posters all day during ToxExpo hours, but authors are expected to stand by and present their posters only during their assigned Poster Session.
All accepted late-breaking posters will be scheduled for a Poster Session on Thursday, March 19, from 8:30 am to 11:30 am. Authors are required to present their poster during the entire Late-Breaking Poster Session. No Platform Sessions will be developed from late-breaking abstract submissions.
Please consult the Poster Sessions FAQs for further information.
Abstract Acceptances
Poster Session acceptance notices and session timing/instructions were delivered by email on November 26. Poster and platform presentations have been finalized, and the complexity of the program planning process prevents any changes in the type of session, time, or location of any presentation. There are no exceptions. Late-breaking abstract acceptance notices will be delivered by email in late January 2020.
PowerPoint presentations that are PC compatible are required for Platform Session presentations. For assistance with preparing your poster or platform presentations, please visit the “Poster Sessions” and “Platform Sessions” web pages.
Abstract Withdrawals
Abstract acceptance obligates the author to pay the meeting registration fee and present the abstract in the assigned Poster or Platform Session. Written notification of withdrawal of an abstract must be received by SOT Headquarters by December 2 if the abstract cannot be included in the Annual Meeting materials. Any withdrawal requests made after December 2 will be honored by SOT Headquarters; however, based on the date of the request, the abstract may be included in the materials, and a “Withdrawn by Author” sign will appear on the poster board.
Authorship and Sponsorship
Authors are permitted a presenting author on only one abstract for the meeting, which includes presentations for Scientific Sessions. There is no restriction on the number of co-authorships. The SOT Scientific Program Committee reserves the right to require consolidation of multiple abstracts submitted from a single study. Each abstract selected for the program must be presented by the presenting author.
If none of the authors is an SOT member, sponsorship by a Full or Associate member or by an approved sponsoring organization is required. If an SOT member is unavailable to sponsor the abstract and at least one author is a member of an organization approved for offering sponsorship, the author can indicate a sponsoring organization instead of member in the abstract system. By sponsoring the abstract, the sponsor acknowledges that the research has been done according to the SOT Code of Ethics. SOT members may sponsor an unlimited number of abstracts.
The approved sponsoring organizations are:
What the Abstract Should and Should Not Include
The Scientific Program Committee reviews each abstract that is submitted. The scientific quality of the abstracts presented contributes substantially toward making the SOT Annual Meeting the leading international forum for new toxicologic research. Therefore, there is a standard for abstract acceptance. The following guidelines apply to each abstract:
For acceptance, abstracts describing the results of experimental studies must answer two questions (“What was done?” and “What was found?”) and must contain the following:
- A statement of the rationale and scope of the study presented
- A brief description of the experimental procedures
- The data that resulted from the study
- The principal conclusion(s) based on interpretation of the results
Additionally, authors should consider the following when developing the abstract:
- Test compounds utilized in the study should be identified in the abstract. In cases where the length of the proper chemical name precludes its use, a manufacturer’s identification number, etc., may be acceptable, provided the structure and chemical identity of the compound are included in the presentation. Abstracts will not be accepted if the authors are unable to disclose the chemical identity of the compound(s) used in the study.
- When describing your research or assessment approaches, please refrain from using introductory phrases such as “will be presented.” Phrases such as “results/data will be discussed” convey no information as to the outcome of the studies and are unacceptable.
- It can be challenging to describe results of “big data” studies within the confines of a 2,300-character abstract. Instead, include specific examples of findings to help meet the requirement for description of data.
- All animal experimentation must be carried out in accordance with the Society’s Guiding Principles in the Use of Animals in Toxicology
. - All abstracts submitted with human testing require that IRB protocol has been followed and approval obtained.
In the case of studies that do not describe laboratory or field experiments, such as reports on educational, ethics, legal, or social initiatives, authors should:
- Describe the research or assessment approach instead of experimental procedures.
- Summarize the study’s results or findings explicitly.
- Clearly articulate the implications for stakeholders.
In addition, abstracts describing new initiatives or science policy in the regulatory community must clearly describe the impact on the practice of toxicology and/or risk assessment. Care should be taken to clearly distinguish between statements based on documented facts versus opinions. Literature surveys or reviews and background materials are insufficient in and of themselves.
FAQs
General
- Air Pollution Toxicology
- Air Pollution: Biomass
- Air Pollution: Ozone
- Air Pollution: Particulate Matter
- Alternatives to Mammalian Models
- Animal Models
- Autoimmunity/Hypersensitivity
- Bioinformatics
- Biological Modeling
- Biomarkers
- Biotransformation/Cytochrome P450
- Carcinogenesis
- Cardiovascular Toxicology/Hemodynamics
- Cell Death/Apoptosis
- Chemical Threats and Bioterrorism
- Climate Change and Effects
- Clinical and Translational Toxicology
- Computational Toxicology and Data Integration
- Developmental and Juvenile Toxicology
- Developmental Basis of Adult Disease
- Disposition/Pharmacokinetics
- Drugs of Abuse
- Ecotoxicology
- Education, Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues
- Emerging Technologies
- Endocrine Toxicology
- Epidemiology and Public Health
- Epigenetics
- Exposure Assessment/Biomonitoring
- Food Safety/Nutrition
- Gene Regulation/Signal Transduction
- Genotoxicity/DNA Repair
- Immunotoxicity
- Inflammation
- Kidney
- Liver
- Medical Devices
- Metals
- Mixtures
- Nanotoxicology, General
- Nanotoxicology, In Vitro
- Nanotoxicology, In Vivo
- Natural Disasters
- Natural Products
- Neurodegenerative Disease
- Neurodegenerative Disease: Parkinson’s Disease
- Neurotoxicity, Developmental
- Neurotoxicity, General
- Neurotoxicity, Metals
- Neurotoxicity, Pesticides
- Nonchemical Stressors and Cumulative Risk Assessment
- Ocular Toxicology
- Oxidative Injury and Redox Biology
- Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances (PFAS)
- Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
- Pesticides
- Receptors
- Regulation/Policy
- Reproductive Toxicology
- Respiratory Toxicology
- Risk Assessment
- Safety Assessment: Nonpharmaceutical
- Safety Assessment: Pharmaceutical—Drug Development
- Safety Assessment: Pharmaceutical—Drug Discovery
- Skin
- Stem Cell Biology and Toxicology
- Systems Biology and Toxicology
Abstracts that are selected to be presented orally, as opposed to as a poster, are scheduled into Platform Sessions, where speakers have 15 minutes each to deliver a PowerPoint presentation of their abstract.
You may indicate your interest in this type of presentation at the beginning of the submission process by selecting the option for “Platform or Poster” on the “Presentation Preference” screen. The programming of your abstract into a particular session type will be at the discretion of the Scientific Program Committee.
Traditionally, the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo features late-breaking abstracts. The SOT Scientific Program Committee makes the decision to feature a late-breaking session in October/November and will subsequently make an announcement and provide information (through the Annual Meeting website and other communication channels) on how to make a late-breaking submission.
The Scientific Program Committee reviews late-breaking abstracts as thoroughly as regular abstracts. Late-breaking abstracts should contain truly late-breaking data in order to be accepted into the program. The late-breaking abstract period should not be viewed as a “grace period” or “late abstract submission” period.
Traditionally, the submission period for late-breaking abstracts is in December and January, and the submission fee for late-breaking abstracts is $75.
Keep in mind that late-breaking abstracts are programmed for Thursday morning during the Annual Meeting (no exceptions).
If none of the authors on your abstract is an SOT member, sponsorship by a Full or Associate member is required. By sponsoring the abstract, the sponsor acknowledges that the research has been completed in adherence with the SOT Code of Ethics. If there is no Full or Associate SOT member available, if at least one author is a member of an approved sponsoring organization, you may indicate that in the Abstract Submission System. A full list of approved sponsoring organizations can be found here.
At this time, SOT can only accept payment by credit card. Accepted credit cards include Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.
A “Print Receipt” option will appear in the Abstract Submission System once the abstract fee payment has been approved. Note: Abstract confirmations/receipts are not emailed to you through the Abstract Submission System.
Refunds are not offered for any abstracts that have been submitted for the SOT Annual Meeting. The submission fee covers the costs associated with processing and reviewing the abstracts.
Abstract Scheduling
The SOT Scientific Program Committee traditionally groups Poster Sessions into daily slots based on topic. For example, the Arsenic Toxicity, Toxicity of Metal Mixtures, and Metal Toxicity Poster Sessions would occur on the ToxExpo floor at the same time. Keep in mind that all accepted posters must be displayed all day during ToxExpo hours, but authors will attend their posters only during the assigned Poster Session time frame.
Not all poster board clusters on the ToxExpo floor contain the same number of boards, and not all Poster Sessions contain the same number of posters. Therefore, ensuring that all Poster Sessions begin and end in the same poster board cluster is extremely difficult.
To resolve this issue, the SOT Scientific Program Committee would need to set a minimum and maximum number of poster abstracts accepted per Poster Session so the sessions would contain an equal number of boards within the same cluster, which would limit the number of poster abstracts accepted. The current policy is to assign no more than 40 posters to a Poster Session, while the minimum is five posters for a Poster Session.
Signs are used throughout the poster board areas to help attendees and poster presenters locate sessions and specific poster presentations. Poster board clusters also are color coded (blue, green, orange, purple) to assist attendees with locating the clusters on the maps located in the ToxExpo Exhibit Hall.
Poster boards are strategically placed throughout the ToxExpo Exhibit Hall to optimize the experience of attendees and exhibitors by creating an ease of movement throughout the hall.
Using the Abstract System
The system has a 120-minute time-out feature. After 120 minutes of inactivity, the system will automatically log you out. If this happens, your entries up to that point WILL BE SAVED, and you will be returned to the place where you left off when you log back in. If you get a “Page Cannot Be Displayed” error, you have probably been logged out.
This depends on your browser. For most browsers, you may copy and paste your full title and abstract into the appropriate fields in the abstract system from an MS Word document, and the special characters will be preserved in the abstract system. A special character tool also is available in the abstract system. However, if there is hidden coding embedded in the document you are copying from, the special characters may be replaced with a question mark or other symbols when the abstract is loaded into the Abstract Submission System. Be sure to review the summary page of your abstract submission in the system and check the special characters to make sure they are intact.
If you have any conflicts of interest that you need to disclose, please indicate them in the author step. If your abstract is accepted, you must include those conflicts on a disclosure slide in your platform presentation or make the disclosure on your poster.
The submission site does not recognize your SOT membership login information and requires a separate login. However, when you create your Abstract Submission System login, you may use your SOT credentials.
Upon starting the process to submit an abstract, you will be automatically assigned a control ID number. Once you have completed the abstract submission process, please keep a copy of the submission confirmation for your records, including your control ID number. You will need your control ID number to communicate with SOT Headquarters and/or the Tech Support team about a specific abstract.
Poster Sessions FAQs
Based on attendee comments in the Annual Meeting Surveys, many attendees were often unable to attend Poster Sessions due to busy schedules. SOT leadership agreed to follow other scientific society models and offer an all-day poster display to maximize the experience of all attendees.
SOT policy is to not allow any photography of posters unless permission is expressed by the author. SOT staff and security staff will be enforcing the “no photography” policy on-site to curtail concerns about the all-day display format. “No Photography” signs will be displayed on all poster boards. Attendees who violate the no photography policy risk ejection from the Annual Meeting.
No. Presenting authors will attend their posters during their assigned Poster Session time frame, but the poster will remain displayed for the entire day.
The presenting authors are encouraged to include an email address or other contact information on their poster so attendees who view the poster when the author is not in attendance can contact the authors with questions or other information.
Poster Sessions and their corresponding time blocks are defined by topic (e.g., Neurotoxicology, Metals) so that attendees interested in that topic have access to the authors at the same time. In addition, the Scientific Program Committee will make every effort to ensure that no Scientific Sessions, including Platform Sessions, related to a specific topic occur during the same time period as the Poster Session for that topic.
As in previous years, the Program, SOT Event App, and other materials will include annotations to indicate the Poster Session time, which corresponds to the author-attended time. In addition, signs will be placed on the ToxExpo floor to explain and define the session times.
On Monday through Wednesday, authors may enter the Exhibit Hall as early as 7:30 am to mount their posters. On Thursday, authors may begin setting up their posters at 8:00 am. As always, pushpins will be provided.
Poster “tear-down” will occur between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm Monday through Wednesday.
On Monday and Tuesday, posters that are left on the boards after 5:00 pm will be placed in a poster retrieval area near that Poster Session’s presentation area and can be picked up by the author the next morning. Any posters in the retrieval area that are unclaimed by 10:00 am the day after the poster presentation will be destroyed.
On Wednesday, posters left on the boards after 5:00 pm will be removed and placed on tables outside the Exhibit Hall entrance. Any posters unclaimed by 10:00 am on Thursday will be destroyed.
Authors are required to have their poster mounted on the board for the full duration of the ToxExpo hours (9:00 am–4:30 pm). Poster Session Chairs will be assigned to assist authors during the Poster Sessions, to note any empty boards, and to check compliance with the all-day poster display requirement.
Only late-breaking posters will be programmed for Thursday, from 8:30 am to 11:30 am.
It is very common for Poster Session Chairs to present a poster in the session they are chairing; that is why SOT assigns up to four Chairs per Poster Session. You may split the poster Chair duties with the other Chairs. If the other Chairs also are presenting posters in your Poster Session, you are authorized to leave your poster for a few minutes during the session to fulfill the Chair duties as explained in the Poster Session Chair Guidelines.