Research Festival Accepts Poster Submissions

The 2008 NIH Research Festival will be held Oct. 14-17 on campus. This year’s program committee is co-chaired by Dr. Lee Helman of NCI and Dr. Ira Levin of NIDDK.

The opening plenary session will feature obesity research conducted in the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP). It will be held in Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10, on Tuesday, Oct. 14, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Other events during the 4-day showcase of the NIH IRP will include symposia and poster sessions; exhibits on resources for intramural research; the Job Fair for postdoctoral, research and clinical fellows; the Food and Music Fair; and the Technical Sales Association scientific equipment tent show.

The committee is now accepting submissions of poster abstracts online through Aug. 5 by all NIH investigators and Bethesda FDA/CBER investigators. Posters in any area of research conducted within the IRP will be considered for presentation, but the committee is requesting a limit of one poster submission per first author.

For a preliminary schedule of events and online poster registration, visit http://researchfestival.nih.gov. The deadline for online poster submission is Aug. 5. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by email in late August.

For more information about poster registration, contact Paula Cohen or Amy Blackburn at researchfest@mail.nih.gov.

FAES Announces Fall Courses

The FAES Graduate School at NIH announces the schedule of courses for the fall 2008 semester. The majority of the evening classes sponsored by the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences will be given on the NIH campus.

Courses are offered in biochemistry, biology, biotechnology (daytime courses), chemistry, immunology, languages, medicine, microbiology, pharmacology, statistics, technology transfer, alternative medicine and courses of general interest. A technology transfer certificate program is also being offered.

It is possible to transfer credits earned to other institutions for degree work, with their approval.

Classes will begin Sept. 15; mail registration ends Aug. 22 and an open house will be held Aug. 26 from 4 to 7 p.m. at FAES House at 9101 Old Georgetown Rd. Walk-in registration will be held from Sept. 2-9, and at the open house. Tuition is $115 per credit hour and courses may be taken for credit or audit. Courses that qualify for institute support as training should be cleared with supervisors and administrative officers as soon as possible. Both the vendor’s copy of the training form and the FAES registration form must be submitted at the time of registration. Note that FAES cannot access training forms entered in the NIHTS system; a signed hard copy (vendor’s copy of SF 182 form) is needed in order to process registrations for classes. Asking your institute to pay your tuition is a preliminary step to registration but does not constitute registration with the FAES Graduate School.

Schedules are available in the graduate school office in Bldg. 60, Suite 230; the Foundation Bookstore in Bldg. 10, Rm. B1L101; and the business office in Bldg. 10, Rm. B1C18. To have a catalog sent, call (301) 496-7976 or visit www.faes.org.

NIH Sailing Association Open House, July 26

The NIH Sailing Association will hold an open house on Saturday, July 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Selby Bay Sailing Center in Mayo, Md. Explore your interest in learning to sail and discover opportunities for sailing with NIHSA. There will be demonstration sails for adults in the club’s 19-ft. Flying Scot sailboats. Fall sailing classes begin Aug. 20; this is a good chance to preview the boats and meet the members. At the open house you can: join NIHSA; sign up for the 6-week Adult Sailing Class; find out about club sailboat racing; and check out the social schedule of NIHSA. Directions can be found at www.recgov.org/sail. Food and drinks are $5 per person. Look for posters and flyers around campus for more information.

FAES Bookstore Welcomes Customers

Come visit the Foundation Bookstore in Bldg. 10, Rm. B1L101. It is offering 30 percent off on select medical books from now through September. Titles will change each month. The store also stocks fiction titles. For more information call (301) 496-5272.

On hand at the dedication of the new NIH-sponsored biosecurity institute at Kansas State University were (from l) Murray Cohen, president of Frontline Healthcare Workers Safety Foundation, which serves as the government contractor for the facility; Ron Trewyn and Scott Rusk of K-State; and Dr. Deborah Wilson, director of ORS’s Division of Occupational Health and Safety.

NIH-Sponsored Training Program Debuts at Kansas State University Kansas State University’s Biosecurity Research Institute (BRI) is the NIH-sponsored National Biosafety and Biocontainment Training Program’s first designated training facility in the nation. A plaque illustrating BRI’s new designation was unveiled at a ceremony recently in Manhattan, Kan. The National Biosafety and Biocontainment Training Program was established in 2004 through a partnership including ORS’s Division of Occupational Health and Safety. Administered by the Frontline Healthcare Workers Safety Foundation, the program aims to provide the latest in professional education to those who operate, maintain and work in biocontainment laboratories. The BRI at K-State is the only biosafety level-3 biocontainment research and training facility in the U.S. that can accommodate high-consequence pathogen research on food animals, food crops and food processing under one roof, which allows for a more comprehensive research approach. Dr. Deborah Wilson, director of the Division of Occupational Health and Safety, said recent advances in animal and public health research have led to a growing number of labs and a pressing need for high-quality occupational safety and health training.