This application seeks funds to provide travel grants to enable U.S. scientists to attend the Tenth International Congress of Pharamacology in Sydney, Australia, August 23-29, 1987. We are requesting $150,000 to defray some, but not all, travel costs for approximately 120 U.S. scientists. These funds will be supplemented by $60,000 in travel awards from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and approximately $40,000 from pharmaceutical industry contributions. The supplemental funds will provide travel assistance for an additional 80 scientists from North America. A Travel Award Selection Committee, composed of ASPET members, will review all applications for travel support. Critical priority elements in the Committee's decisions will be the quality of the applicant's research, its pertinence to scientific topics of the Congress, and documented need for travel assistance. We will select recipients who are best qualified to represent the forefront of U.S. pharmacology. High priority will be given to outstanding young scientists who represent the future strength of American pharamacological research; and to those invited participants in Congress lectures, symposia and debates who require travel support. Pharmacology is a science concerned with the interactions between drugs, or chemicals, and biological systems. It is a unique discipline in the duality of its aims: (1) understanding all aspects of the drug action, and (2) using drugs as selective probes to elucidate normal and abnormal function in biological systems. From the level of basic research to the development of new drugs pharmacology has contributed impressively to the health of American citizens, and to the reduction of health care costs. Drugs frequently shorten hospital confinement, eliminate the need for surgery in many cases, curtail physician visits, reduce the number of work days lost and, not least, minimize suffering. These health benefits have derived from America's international leadership in pharmacology; a position that can be maintained only by keeping American pharmacologist abreast of the latest scientific advances from all over the world. That opportunity is exemplified by the breadth and quality of the scientific program for the Tenth International Congress of Pharmacology. It is important, therefore, that we send a substantial number of U.S. scientists to this Congress.
