As co-chairman of the next international Immunology of Diabetes Society (IDS) meeting, Dr. Eisenbarth is submitting a grant to the National Institutes of Health for meeting support of the IDS meeting. The 6th International Congress of the Immunology of Diabetes Society is being held in Copper Mountain, Colorado between October 3-6, 2002. This is a 4 day meeting that is expected to be attended by approximately 400 delegates from all over the world. The IDS is an international forum for all aspects of diabetes immunology: pathogenesis, prediction, prevention, genetics, etc. International meetings are held every 1 to 2 years. For this meeting we are focusing on presenting, through symposia and plenary talks, state of the art information within related fields. There will be a discussion of autoantibodies in both human and animal models in a workshop setting as well as a special session on type 1 diabetes onset in humans. The diabetes immunology community will benefit much by sharing of information in the newest advances in other fields of immunology, genetics, and autoimmunity. This grant is sought to support the travel of delegates attending this conference and help provide stipends for invited speakers. More than half of the funding will provide travel scholarships to young investigators. Travel grants for young investigators will be chosen by numerical rating of submitted abstracts and additional travel funding will be applied to plenary lectures chosen by the international organizing committee.
