The University of Pittsburgh will host the 31st National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium (June 15-19, 2008) organized by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The PI, Dr. Barry Gold (Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy), serves as the Symposium Chair. This biannual Symposium presents exciting and novel developments in the field of medicinal chemistry in a forum that fosters discussion among attendees and identifies scientific challenges of highest priority to be addressed in future research. Attendees come from throughout the US and Canada as well as Europe and Asia. Young investigators in training are an important part of this dialogue. We seek R13 funding for travel awards to be awarded competitively to 10 pre-doctoral and 5 post-doctoral trainees selected to make poster presentations at the Symposium. ? ? The 2008 Symposium includes 8 oral sessions and 2 poster sessions. The oral sessions, each of which includes 5 presentations, address topics in nucleic acids targeting, cancer targets, hepatitis C, in vitro and in vivo pharmacokinetics, biomarkers/PET, inflammation/immunology, and virtual library design and screening plus time to address late-breaking topics not contemplated during the conference planning period. The Symposium Program is co-chaired by representatives from industry (Dr. Mark Murkco, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Boston, MA) and academia (Dr. Peter Wipf, Department of Chemistry, School of Arts & Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, PA) who selected the oral session topics and will monitor themes at related meetings to avoid overlap in content and highlight late-breaking developments. ? ? The poster sessions comprise a critical component of the meeting, especially for pre- and post-doctoral trainees, who are given a forum at which to present their research to a distinguished audience from academia, industry, and government. The poster sessions do not overlap with the oral presentations so all symposia attendees can participate in each session. Poster abstracts must be submitted by January 8, 2008 and will be reviewed by an expert scientific panel both for acceptance for presentation at the Symposium and for consideration for an R13-supported travel award. NIH funds will be used to reimburse travel award recipients for the registration fee, campus lodging, awards banquet, and airfare. ? ? ? ?
