This grant request is for fellows' travel and expenses related to attending the Clinical Immunology Society (CIS) Systemic Autoimmune Diseases; 2003 Summer School. This grant request accounts for 65% of the funding required to support the fellows' travel and expenses to attend the CIS Systemic Autoimmune Diseases; 2003 Summer School. Additional funding will be solicited from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The CIS is proposing the development of the Systemic Autoimmune Diseases; 2003 Summer School. This Summer School will be an intensive 4-day residential course to be held in November, 2003 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The topic of this Summer School will be Systemic Autoimmune Diseases, geared toward fellows in training holding either an MD and/or a PhD, within their last years of fellowship training. The primary goal of the Summer School is education on the diagnosis, pathogenesis, and treatment of systemic autoimmune diseases. Emphasis will be given to new treatments that are under development and future possibilities. By the end of the Summer School, participants should be able to better diagnose and treat systemic autoimmune diseases; have an enhanced awareness of clinical immunology as it relates to systemic autoimmune diseases and its importance in scientific discoveries and clinical application; and become ambitious in pursuing academic careers to further our understanding, diagnosis and treatment of human systemic autoimmune diseases. Lastly, the Summer School should stimulate future collaborations between young investigators in different medical centers and countries, and between young investigators and experienced physician / scientists in the field. The Summer School will be residential in character and held in an informal location that can attract applicants from America, Europe and Asia. There will be 8 faculty and 25 fellows. Only fellows from the United States will receive funding made possible through the NIH grant.
