? ? The purpose of this proposal is to seek support for the Annual Meeting of the American Society for ? Investigative Pathology (ASIP), which is held each April as part of the Experimental Biology convention. Planning has been largely finalized for the 2006 meeting, which will take place at the Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, CA, April 1-5. ASIP's annual meeting provides a unique forum for presentation and sharing of cutting-edge research in investigative pathology. The program comprises half-day symposia and workshops, lectures by award recipients, and abstract-driven minisymposia and poster sessions. It also includes two full-day symposia, each centered on a single topic of interest to a wide range of attendees. These """"""""meetings-within-a-meeting"""""""" are designed to encourage interactions between established investigators and more junior researchers. The target audience and subject matter for ASIP's annual meeting are diverse but united by a common focus on mechanisms of disease. As is traditional, the 2006 meeting includes strong components in vascular, cardiac, and pulmonary pathobiology. ASIP's annual meeting also promotes career development of trainee and young investigators through special events designed for their needs and sessions that showcase their work. The program further provides a number of ? educational initiatives, both targeted and of interest to the biomedical research community as a whole. The specific goal that this application intends to foster is greater participation of junior investigators through: 1) expansion of travel award and mentoring programs; and 2) provision of special sessions directed toward graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical residents in pathology. Lay summary: The Annual Meeting of the American Society for Investigative Pathology offers a unique forum for the sharing of research results relating to a wide spectrum of human diseases. Such sharing fosters more rapid advances in our understanding of human disease and accelerates the rate at which this knowledge can be applied to the development of new therapies. This meeting also provides educational and career support to younger investigators who are interested in joining the field of experimental pathology. ? ? ? ?
