This R13 application requests support for a conference entitled North American Conference on Complementary and Integrative Medical Research to be held at the Minneapolis Hilton Hotel on May 12-15, 2009. This conference is sponsored by the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine (CAHCIM) which represents 39 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada with programs focusing on complementary therapies and models of integrative medicine. The site host for the conference is the University of Minnesota, Center for Spirituality and Healing, a member of CAHCIM. This research conference is intended to showcase the highest quality, peer-reviewed, original research in this field. Its faculty is composed of leaders from the conventional and complementary medical research communities of both the United States and Canada, including federally and provincially funded investigators, directors of integrative centers, educators and policy researchers. Expert reviewers of original abstracts are nominated by a process governed by the Consortium's Research Steering Committee. This is the fourth in a series of highly successful conferences with similar focus, audience and peer-review process that were originally co-sponsored by Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The most recent conference (and the first sponsored by the Consortium) was held in Edmonton, AB, Canada in May of 2006. This conference is meant to showcase by way of keynote and plenary presentations, posters, symposia and workshops, original scientific research involving complementary and integrative medical therapies. Basic science investigators, clinical and health service researchers will present original research and moderate panel presentations selected through a peer-review process. Leaders in the field will be invited to provide keynote addresses and to moderate concurrent research presentations.
Public scientific meetings where new peer-reviewed work is presented and discussed are crucial for the advancement of all research disciplines as they allow scientists, regulators, funders, researchers-in-training and commercial entities to come together in a focused setting to explore data from important recent work in their respective disciplines, address issues of common concern, and inspect new resources that offer to make their work more efficient. The general public benefits enormously by way of the improved therapeutic and other scientific advances that make their first appearance at these meetings. NIH support of this particular research meeting in 2002 and 2006 has been critical in allowing them to extend the benefits of attending to a larger and more diverse audience.
