This application seeks partial support for student, postdoctoral fellow, and minority participation as well as some of the cost of invited speakers, for the 2004 and 2005 Alcohol and Immunology Research Interest Group (AIRIG) meetings, which will be held in conjunction with other scientific conferences. In the fall of 2004, AIRIG will meet as a Satellite Workshop just prior to the start of the Annual Meeting Society for Leukocyte Biology's (SLB) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and in 2005, we will meet the day before the Autumn Immunology Conference in Chicago, IL. The 2004 Satellite Meeting entitled "Alcohol and host resistance to infection" will be held on the afternoon of October 20th and the morning of October 21st at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto immediately preceding the SLB' s Annual Meeting. The 2004 SLB Meeting "Host response to pathogens: handling the uninvited guest" will be held October 21-24, 2004. In 2005, AIRIG will focus on the "Alcohol and immune responses" and will be held on the November 18th,2005, at Chicago Marriott Hotel, the day before the start of the three day Autumn Immunology Conference. In addition to strong scientific programs, with impressive lists of invited plenary speakers, both meetings are relatively small (400-450 registrants), which will allow greater visibility of AIRIG than would be possible at larger meetings. Additionally, both SLB and the Autumn Immunology Conference have multiple opportunities for young developing scientist at the student and postdoctoral fellows to participate on many levels. A significant proportion of the SLB podium presentations are selected from abstract submission and many additional abstracts are selected for presentation in poster workshops. The Autumn Immunology Conference is geared toward the active participation of student and postdoctoral fellows. Every poster presenter has the opportunity to present orally through poster workshops. SLB has "meet the speakers" luncheons giving small groups of students the chance to interact with plenary speakers and the Autumn Immunology Conference has Careers in Immunology Workshops. These sessions allow time for career building and collaborative opportunities, which may not be feasible or readily available at larger meetings. Thus, in addition to providing a forum for the discussion of current research in the field, overall goals of the co-organizers are to expand the participation of students, postdoctoral trainees and minority scientists and increase the critical mass of scientists working on alcohol and immunology issues. We believe that these goals will be best achieved in the next two years by hosting AIRIG in conjunction with the SLB and Autumn Immunology Conference.

R13AA015276

2004-06-01

2005-05-31