Third Annual Renal Week Highlights
Three cities down and four more to go… . Join ASN at our Third Annual Renal Week Highlights Meetings, taking place in March in a city near you! Expert faculty will summarize, critique, and put into perspective key presentations from Renal Week 2005 in Philadelphia. These “Renal Week Highlights” programs are perfect not only for those of you who couldn’t attend Renal Week, but also for November attendees who missed several key presentations. Renal Week Highlights meetings are the best way to catch up on what you missed at Renal Week! Register online and obtain housing and program information at www.asn-online.org.
Join us in the city nearest you:
Seattle, WA, March 4 to 5, 2006
Houston, TX, March 18 to 19, 2006
New York, NY, March 11 to 12, 2006
Toronto, Canada, March 25 to 26, 2006
Membership—Don’t Forget to Renew for 2006!
Most ASN members have already renewed for 2006. Don’t forget that membership renewal ensures uninterrupted delivery of JASN, CJASN, and NephSAP ™, as well as continued access to ASN’s web-based membership benefits (including Renal Week abstract submission) and meeting registration discounts. If you have not yet renewed your membership, please do so today! If you need a renewal form, please contact the ASN offices at email{at}asn-online.org and one will be e-mailed or sent to you.
11th Annual Board Review Course & Update
Join ASN from August 26 to September 1, 2006, at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco, CA. ASN’s Board Review Course & Update has become a “Renal Rite of Passage” and can be customized to meet your specific needs! An intensive review and update for ALL and a MUST for Certification & Recertification. The timing of the ASN Board Review Course & Update in late August maximizes attendees’ readiness for the October Nephrology Board certification and recertification examinations of the American Board of Internal Medicine. After completion of the course and the self-assessment test on September 2, participants have a full two months to fill in any gaps in their knowledge. It’s August, it’s San Francisco, so it must be ASN’s Board Review Course! Stay tuned to your mail and email boxes later this spring for additional information and registration forms.
Renal Week 2006—Call for Abstracts
The deadline to submit all abstracts for Renal Week 2006 is Wednesday, June 7, 2006, 11:59 p.m. Central Standard Time. Once again, abstracts will only be accepted through our Abstracts Submission site, accessible through our website at www.asn-online.org. Abstracts received after June 7 will not be accepted or reviewed. No exceptions will be made. Abstracts must be submitted or sponsored by an active ASN member (dues paid through December 2006 by Friday, May 26, 2006). Please visit the ASN website for additional details about abstract submission.
Apply for FASN Status
The designation “Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology” (FASN) was established to recognize ASN members who have distinguished themselves through excellence in practice or research. Attainment of FASN status represents recognition of outstanding credentials, high professional achievement, commitment to the field, and demonstrated scholarship. There are two pathways to FASN status: the Clinical Pathway and the Investigator Pathway. Applicants select one of the pathways and follow five simple steps. See the membership services section of the ASN website for additional information and an application (www.asn-online.org).
ASN Grant Deadlines and Details
Don’t forget to submit your grant applications soon! Each of ASN’s grant opportunities is described below. Except as noted below, the submission deadline for grant applications is March 10, 2006. Additional information, including applications, is available on the ASN website at www.asn-online.org.
Alaska Kidney Foundation–ASN Research Grant. (NEW!) Provides funding for young faculty to foster evolution to an independent research career by providing transition funding toward successful application for an RO1 grant.
ASN–ASP Junior Development Grant in Geriatric Nephrology. Supports developing academic subspecialists interested in careers focused on the geriatric and gerontologic aspects of nephrology during the early years of a first faculty appointment; cosponsored with the American Society of Subspecialty Professors.
ASN–AST John Merrill Grant in Transplantation. Designed to foster the independent careers of young investigators in biomedical research related to transplantation; cosponsored with the American Society of Transplantation.
Carl W. Gottschalk Research Scholar Grant. Provides funding for young faculty to foster evolution to an independent research career by providing transition funding toward successful application for an RO1 grant.
KUFA–ASN Research Grant. Cosponsored with the Kidney & Urology Foundation of America, provides funding for young faculty to foster evolution to an independent research career by providing transition funding toward successful application for an RO1 grant.
Halpin Foundation–ASN Research Grant. Provides funding for young faculty to foster evolution to an independent research career by providing transition funding toward successful application for an RO1 grant; this grant is directed toward researchers studying membranous nephropathy.
New Directions Grant for Established Investigators. Provides an established investigator with funds for pilot studies in a new area of research, which will likely lead to NIH funding.
M. James Scherbenske Grant. Provides bridge funding for investigators from RO1 to RO1 whose application was scored, but not funded—Quarterly deadlines of March 15, 2006, June 15, 2006, & November 15, 2006.
ASN’s Newest Staff Member
Marlene Zipin recently joined ASN as a Marketing Coordinator and will be assisting with the development of all ASN marketing plans. Specifically, she will focus on the writing, production, and distribution of ASN marketing communications, including flyers, brochures, display advertisements, website communications, and broadcast e-mails. Marlene has worked at a marketing communications agency and an advertising sales agency, where she has gained extensive experience in marketing, advertising, and public relations. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Public Communications from American University and has been living in the Washington, DC, area since graduation.
Policy and Public Affairs Update
Senate Bill to Address Medical Innovation and Translational Research at the National Institutes of Health
Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) has introduced the American Center for Cures Act in the United States Senate. The act would create new centers and offices within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which Senator Lieberman claims will promote highly innovative, multidisciplinary research that will accelerate the translation of scientific discovery from bench to bedside. The bill uses recommendations from the 2003 National Academy of Science (NAS) report, Enhancing the Vitality of the National Institutes of Health: Organizational Change to Meet New Challenges, as a basis for restructuring NIH to respond to modern health and research challenges.
If enacted, the bill would require that all peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from government-funded research be made publicly available through PubMed Central no more than six months after publication. The legislation would also create the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency within NIH to “support high-risk, high-potential payoff research.” The bill specifies that the research projects agency should “award competitive, merit-reviewed grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts to public or private entities, including businesses, federally-funded research and development centers, and universities.”
A main feature of the bill is the establishment of the American Center for Cures (ACC) within NIH. The ACC would “orchestrate focused research and development of specific solutions to pressing ailments.” Senator Lieberman argues that the ACC would “promote more rapid translation of public and private research into therapies, diagnostics, and tools, which can effectively treat and possibly cure diseases of critical importance to domestic and global health.” The bill would create an advisory council of health experts and stakeholders, co-chaired by the NIH and ACC directors, to offer insight on “the status of national medical needs and novel development in all sectors.” Moreover, the Cures Act would create centralized institutional review boards to oversee multi-institutional clinical research trials and mandate use of the NIH-funded clinical drug trials registry and results database to encourage information sharing and prevent duplicative research. Additionally, the legislation would encourage greater collaboration between NIH and the private sector, which, with its significantly larger biomedical research budget, can play a vital role in the translation of scientific discovery into the production of new drug therapies.
The proposals within the American Center for Cures Act are similar to those of the NIH Roadmap, created by NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, MD. Senator Lieberman and the bill’s co-sponsors recognize the similarities between the bill and NIH Roadmap, but state that, “unlike Cures, the Roadmap relies on traditional academic–government relationships. Cures builds on the Roadmap to cultivate new relationships between NIH researchers and innovative industrial partners. Unlike the Roadmap, which asks NIH to focus on new priorities with old tools and funds, Cures provides much higher levels of funding for a Center uniquely devoted to translating research to produce new therapies and even cures to the most important diseases.”
- © 2006 American Society of Nephrology
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