American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This R13 application seeks funding to support the meeting and for travel awards for students and postdoctoral fellows to attend the American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair (ASNTR) to be held April 26 - 29th, 2012. Since its founding in 1994, the ASNTR has convened yearly each April/May in Clearwater, Florida. This society has a strong tradition of focusing on research advances in the fields of transplantation, neuroengineering and gene therapy applied to neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury that may lead to novel treatment strategies. Clinical trials that have emerged from basic science research reported on at previous meetings are often presented. Thus, students and postdoctoral fellows and other attendees not only learn the basic sciences, they also learn translational issues discussed between basic scientists and clinicians. Therefore, ASNTR annual meetings are unique gatherings. Attendance of this meeting is projected to be approximately 200 registrants, based on previous participation levels. Each year the ASNTR Education and Training Committee encourages students/postdoctoral fellows to submit their abstracts in a competition and the top rated applicants receive travel awards to cover the cost of their meeting attendance and travel. ASNTR has always placed a high priority on funding travel awards for students and post-doctoral fellows. In the past ASNTR has received donations from biotech companies and non-profit organizations to cover these travel awards. However, in recent years ASNTR has seen these contributions dwindle and although ASNTR will continue to seek funding from the private sector, we do not anticipate any increase in contributions above recent levels in the coming years. This application requests $24,000 in total direct costs to support travel awards for the top graduate students/postdoctoral fellows from US institutions that apply (awards of $1200 per student/postdoc). Additional money is requested to partially support a few keynote speakers and meeting expenses. The ASNTR and the Education and Training Committee include and encourage participation of women, minorities and persons with disabilities in all its activities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This application seeks funding for travel awards for graduate students and postdocs to attend the upcoming combined meeting of the American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair and the International Conference on Neural Therapy and Repair. This meeting will allow young and senior scientists and doctors working to discover new treatments for neurological disorders to come together and discuss their new research findings. This meeting will potentially allow new research collaborations to occur that could lead to improved treatments for neurological disorders.