This R13 application requests partial support for the Annual Meeting of the National Sickle Cell Program. The meeting, held four of every five years since 1972, now represents a major national and international forum for research in sickle cell disease and an important venue in which basic science investigators, clinicians, service providers, and advocacy groups interact and collaborate. Investigators funded by virtually all of the NIH programs related to sickle cell disease take advantage of the meeting to gather, exchange ideas, and conduct the business of collaborative trials. A total of 450-600 participants are anticipated, including physicians, scientists, nurses, social worker and other health professions, and patient advocates. The Annual Meeting of the National Sickle Cell Program has four major goals: 1. to stimulate and enhance scientific excellence in sickle cell disease research and clinical by fostering exchange of the latest clinical and scientific information; 2. to facilitate communication and collaboration among the NHLBI-funded Comprehensive Sickle Cell Centers (CSCC), other researchers and clinicians, and broader constituencies interested in sickle cell disease; 3. to provide a venue for working meetings of various NIH-funded research programs related to sickle cell disease; 4. to provide a forum in which junior investigators in a variety of fields, including the Sickle Cell Research Scholars funded by NIH through the CSCC, can present their work and interact with each other and with national leaders in sickle cell research. Support is sought for the meetings in April of 2005 and 2006, which represent the 28th and 29* Annual Meetings. The 2005 meeting will be held April 9-13 in Cincinnati, hosted by the Cincinnati Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, and the 2006 meeting will be hosted in Memphis by the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, Winfred Wang, Director. The Steering Committee of the CSCC will oversee planning of the conference. The requested funds will cover invited speakers, facility costs, audiovisual expenses, and program printing costs, representing approximately one third of the overall costs of the meeting. The remainder of the funds will be derived from registration fees and donations from corporate participants and sponsors.
