ASN 2018 Annual Meeting

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This is application for support of the 49th annual ASN meeting to be held in Riverside, California from March 24-28, 2018. Previous NIH funding has been invaluable for supporting our scientific programs and for enhancing our ability to involve graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and underrepresented groups. To accommodate the breadth of neurochemistry and to provide in-depth analyses of particular topics, the ASN continues to build its scientific program around four interwoven, but distinct, themes. These themes have been selected to increase our understanding of the cellular and molecular basis of neural development and disease. These four themes are: 1) Building the Nervous System/Neurodevelopment, 2) Cellular Metabolism and Neurotransmission/Cognition, 3) Glial Function in Health and Disease, and 4) Neurodegeneration; each theme has one of the four Plenary/Presidential speakers. The ASN is strongly committed to the representation of women and racial/ethnic minorities at its meetings. One of the four Plenary/Presidential speakers is female, 40% of the Chairs/Co-Chairs of Symposia and Colloquia are female, and 9% of the Chairs/Co-Chairs are from racial/ethnic minorities; 43% of the Speakers of Symposia and Colloquia are female, while 7% are from racial/ethnic minorities. The ASN strongly supports young investigators in their development; 11% of the Chairs/Co-Chairs of Symposia and Colloquia and 5% of the Session Speakers are at the pre-faculty, i.e. post- doctoral/graduate student levels. The ASN meeting provides numerous opportunities for participants to exchange ideas and to form new collaborations because total expected attendance is ~ 300, and there are numerous opportunities incorporated in our program for participants to congregate informally. The Society also has several mechanisms to enhance the professional development of junior investigators during the meeting. We organize meetings with the Plenary/Presidential speakers, which gives attendees a chance to discuss topics directly with the speakers. The fees for these meetings are reduced for students and postdoctoral fellows. There is a mingle that included an educational/mentoring component, exclusively for students and postdoctoral fellows. This event has been repeatedly recognized as an outstanding opportunity to network. There is a function entitled “Women in Neurochemistry” that is open to all attendees, and junior investigators have reduced fees. There are Oral Sessions, which are selected from abstracts submitted, with an emphasis on choosing presentations from graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. There are travel awards for outstanding graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior researchers to defray their costs of attendance. We host a job-posting site and students can meet with potential future mentors or colleagues during the meeting. In 2010, we added a program for visiting high-school students to engage these future scientists. From results of yearly exit surveys, we know that the annual ASN meeting will continue to provide an excellent venue for cutting edge neurochemistry and neurobiology, and for enhancing the careers of young investigators.