Published on: 22-12-2024
“The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”, Timbuk 3
Dear Members of TIAFT,
Time flies and not only am I already issuing my next President’s message, we are fast approaching the end of 2024 and ready to welcome 2025! It’s been a busy year for TIAFT, with a fantastic annual meeting and various regional meetings, congratulations again to the hosts, attendees and everyone that contributed to these. The Committees have also been busy with updates, the Bulletin and webinars, which continue to be high quality and engaging. Talking of Committees, thank you again for all the expressions of interest and congratulations to the new members, especially the Young Scientists and Continuing Education Committee with various new members and worldwide representation. For the Bulletin, we welcome Sam Joubert and Luke Rodda to join existing editor Rebecca Hartman to manage the new digital-only issues. Look out for the updated Committee pages on the new website. Yes, a new website. After the sad passing of Gianpaolo, the website needs a new home with regular maintenance and we will be working with our current member’s platform partner and member volunteers to bring a new public website in 2025.
In addition to the Committees, I can also tell you that the very first TIAFT Task Force (TTF1) has been given their mission with an aim to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of integrating Artificial Intelligence into forensic toxicology to enhance accuracy, efficiency and reliability. The investigation will cover various aspects including current AI applications, potential advantages (like improved accuracy and cost reduction), potential disadvantages (such as ethical concerns and skill gaps) and case studies. The TTF will provide recommendations and best practices for AI integration to be shared with the membership through Bulletin articles, presentations, webinars and potentially publications. Good luck to Tyler Devincenzi, Marie Mardal, Nieves Manuela Barbo, Aaron Shapiro and Stephen Trobbiani, we look forward to hearing the outcomes.
As introduced in St. Gallen, I am also very excited to announce for 2025, the new TIAFT Huestis & Smith International Travel Award. Marilyn and Mick kindly approached TIAFT with the idea of the award to continue their legacy and to recognise their appreciation for the Association. The intention is for up to 3 members of TIAFT each year to attend and present at the annual meeting of the Society of Forensic Toxicology (SOFT) in the USA to allow TIAFT and SOFT members to interact, network, collaborate and share their perspectives on the future of forensic toxicology. A similar reciprocal award for SOFT members to attend and present at the TIAFT annual meeting has also been established. To view the guidelines and future application form, log into the Documents section of the member’s area under TIAFT Organizational Documents. The next meeting of SOFT will be in October in Portland, Oregon and applications with abstracts will be opened in March 2025.
While I’m mentioning abstracts, you should have already seen that the call for abstracts has now opened for the TIAFT annual meeting in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand ready for November 2025. The deadline for abstracts is April and meeting registration will open in February 2025 (see tiaft2025.com for details and updates). Whilst you are working on those abstracts, also don’t forget to submit articles to the TIAFT Special Issue of the Journal of Analytical Toxicology.
So, as you can see, if 2024 was busy, 2025 is going to be even busier with lots to look forward to, hence my chosen song title of a 1986 hit that I know many may not be familiar with, but the title is very relevant. It's also influenced this message’s image which was generated by, yes you guessed it, Artificial Intelligence. With that in mind, you may notice that AI somehow managed to spell “toxicology” wrong when generating the image which I thought was both funny and concerning, something for the TTF to look into!
Season’s greetings and happy New Year to you all,
Dr Simon Elliott,
TIAFT President
www.tiaft.org