This application requests funds to support the Fifth Comparative Medicine Resource Center Directors' Meeting, as well as two subsequent biennial meetings. The purpose of these meetings is to provide a forum for Directors of Resource Centers funded by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) to discuss common issues and problems relevant to fulfilling the mission of NCRR, to receive input and guidance from NCRR, and to share ideas for common solutions. The initial (Fifth) meeting will be held in Bethesda at the Holiday Inn Bethesda for 2 days on October 6-7, 2004. The subsequent biennial meetings will be held at the University of Washington, Seattle and then again in Bethesda. Previous meetings have been held in April 1998 (University of Miami/Rosenstielhl School of Marine and Atmospheric Science), April 1999 (American Type Culture Collection, Manassas, VA), June 2000 (The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME), and November 2002 (San Antonio, TX/Southwest Regional Primate Research Center). The discussion and follow up action items of these meetings have helped Resource Directors recognize the commonality of many of the issues they face and helped them to deal with a variety of common concerns. Topics to be discussed or presented at the Fifth meeting will include the impact of the NIH Roadmap and NCRR's new strategic plan on NCRR resources, updates from Resource Directors on their programs, and synopses of new NCRR-funded programs. Following the practice of previous meetings, three additional meetings will be held immediately after the Directors' meeting: the Specific Pathogen Free Rhesus Macaque Colony grantees, the Chimpanzee Management Plan grantees and contractors, and the Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers principal investigators and co-investigators. The subject matter of the subsequent biennial meetings will be developed by a newly established Steering Committee that has representation of the diverse resources. Because of the overlap in participants, grouping of the Resource Directors' Meeting with the additional meetings provides a cost-effective, time-efficient means for NCRR-funded grantees to have discussions that will benefit from the synergy of direct discussions among people with common concerns, but who would be unlikely to attend the same topical scientific meetings.
