The Teratology Society will be holding its 49th Annual Meeting in Rio Grande, PuertoRico from June 27 - July 1, 2009. The scientific program covers a wide-range of current issues inreproductive and developmental health and disease, with special emphasis on chemical and genetic effects.The meeting attendees historically come from a diverse professional background including basicand clinical scientists from the academic, industrial and government research sectors. TheTeratology Society recognizes the importance of this diverse mix of professionals meetingannually in an informal setting to exchange ideas and the latest experimental findings. The 2009 Program Committee of the Teratology Society, partnering with theOrganization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS) and Neurobehavioral TeratologySociety (NBTS), arranged for an outstanding and expansive scientific program that includeseducation courses (3), scientific symposia (8), special lectures (7), and an exchange session (1)as well as opportunities for open research communications as platform talks and posterpresentations. The session topics address newer concepts in the field and are likely to generatelively interaction. The Annual Meeting provides a place and time for attendees to network, and indulge indiscussions from philosophical to practical with established experts in the field, new researchers,and students. It is also a place and time to promote and express our scientific diversity as aSociety of fellow clinicians, scientists and science policy regulators from academic, industrialand government sectors. In this proposal, we are requesting funds to defray part of the speakerand session expenses for 2009 Teratology Society Annual Meeting.
The 49th Annual Meeting of the Teratology Society will bring together academic, industrial and governmental scientists interested in birth defects research and prevention. The theme for the 2009 meeting is Gene-Environment Interactions: Impact on Maternal and Child Health. The topics will range from the latest findings in basic research on the developmental basis of adult disease to the epidemiology, underlying mechanisms and management of such common problems as prematurity and maternal obesity. Considerations of how to ensure drug safety, both during pregnancy and in children, will encompass approaches that range all the way from studies in non-human primates to computational toxicology.