Greetings!  The time is here to begin planning your abstract for the 2nd Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium to be held Friday, April 22, 2005.  The process is even simper than last year as we have created a form to supply all of the necessary information (attached).  It also is now posted on the GPP website which you can reach from the Activity Highlights on the front page (http://gpp.nih.gov/ ) or further in on the Graduate Student Council pages (http://gpp.nih.gov/GraduateStudents/GraduateStudentCouncil/GSCCommittees/Symposium.htm).  In either case, here are the particulars....

1.      Follow the instructions and fields of the form carefully to make compiling and printing the abstract book easier
2.      Send the completed abstracts back to me
3.      Indicate your first and second preferences to give an oral presentation (15 minutes with 5 minutes for questions) or a poster
4.      If you have a poster from a meeting this fall, or will be making one for a meeting this spring, it is OK to use them for the Symposium
5.      Abstracts should be sent by February 1, 2005
6.      We plan to notify those selected to give talks by the first of March - in general, priority will be given for work which is farthest along to completion but we also will have a broad representation of GPP programs and institutes
7.      Don't be afraid to submit an abstract and poster for work that is just getting under way - a work in progress - as this is a great way to get feedback and input from others.  It is also very important for the NIH community to get a sense of the many contributions graduate students are now making to NIH research.  We had 100 abstracts last year and we know we can do better this year!

If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact anyone on the Symposium Committee.

For the Graduate Student Council Symposium Committee.....

Catherine Schwartz
Rick McGee
Gretchen Nelson
Pat McCarthy
Carisa Zampieri
Irene Viorritto
Anthony Craig