US Immunodeficiency Network News

3 / 8 / 2010 - CIS is pleased to announce the 2010 Fellowship Awards

2010 CIS / Talecris Fellowship Awards

Through a generous unrestricted educational grant from Talecris Biotherapeutics, Center for Science & Education, the Clinical Immunology Society (CIS) is pleased to announce the 2010 Fellowship Awards through which we will be awarding six Senior Fellowship Awards to individuals who have demonstrated commitment to the study of primary immune deficiency as a career path in the United States.

http://www.clinimmsoc.org/opportunities/awards/2010_cis_talecris_fellowship.php

The Clinical Immunology Society (CIS), in collaboration with the USIDNET, announces its ninth Summer School in Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases to be held September 9-13, 2010!

The Summer School is primarily directed at fellows-in-training (within their last two years of training) or junior faculty members. Participants should be pediatricians, internists, or scientists committed to the clinical management of patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases. These candidates may have backgrounds in immunology, infectious diseases, adult medicine, rheumatology, hematology, laboratory immunology, stem cell transplantation, or allergy/immunology.

http://www.clinimmsoc.org/meetings/2010/pid_school/

2009 has been a very busy year for USIDNET. As this marks the fifth year of this NIH sponsored consortium, we have created an E-Newsletter which outlines the progress of this program to date.

Click Here to view our E-Newsletter

12 / 17 / 2009 - He passed away on November 27, 2009....

USIDNET/ IDF/ NIAID staffs were extremely saddened to receive news of the sudden death of their friend and colleague Josiah F. Wedgwood. He passed away of undetermined cause on November 27 while traveling overseas with his son to meet his wife in Paris. Wedgwood was 59.

Wedgwood joined NIAID in 2002 as the chief of the Immunodeficiency and Immunopathology Section in the Clinical Immunology Branch of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation (DAIT). While there, he oversaw research into the mechanisms and treatment of primary immune deficiency diseases. Wedgwood was instrumental in developing significant research programs in autoimmune diseases to help understand their causes and to develop potential treatments for these devastating diseases.

Wedgwood will be sorely missed by family, friends, and colleagues across the nation. “He was not only a highly skilled clinical trials specialist with extensive expertise in pediatric infectious diseases and immunology,” notes NIAID DAIT Director Daniel Rotrosen, “but he also was a wonderful colleague and a devoted husband and father. Josiah was unfailingly generous with his time, deeply committed to improving the lives of people living with various diseases of the immune system, and a tireless advocate for research into those diseases. His many achievements will be remembered by his colleagues and friends at NIAID and within the scientific and patient communities he served.”

Just prior to joining NIAID, he had held concurrent appointments as Director of Newborn Services at the Hospital of Saint Raphael, New Haven, CT, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Yale Medical School, and Attending Neonatologist at Yale/New Haven Hospital.

Wedgwood received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University and his M.D. from The George Washington University School of Medicine. He received the Basil O’Connor Scholar Award from the March of Dimes to support his research to fight immune diseases affecting children. He also provided medical care to patients with pediatric rheumatologic and orthopedic diseases while at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. During his tenure on the faculty of Mount Sinai Medical School, his primary clinical duties included service on the neonatal intensive care unit and research in pediatric immunology.

Wedgwood is survived by his wife, Ruth, and his 11-year-old son, Josiah.

12 / 2 / 2009 - Sorrento, Italy April 29 - May 10 2010

Leading the Way in Allergology and ImmunologyAllergists and immunologists seeking the latest information are invited to this pioneering international congress focusing entirely on these highly specialized fields. The congress covers the entire gamut of Allergology, Immunology and related clinical topics, provides a high-level scientific program featuring keynote speakers and offers CME accreditation. An exciting social programme lies ahead in the idyllic city of Sorrento.

For more information please visit:

www.kenes.com/allergy-immuno

11 / 17 / 2009 - 13th Annual Meeting, May 19-22, 2010 in Washington, DC......

The American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) is the largest professional non-profit medical and scientific organization dedicated to the understanding, development and application of genetic and cellular therapies and the promotion of professional and public education in the field. ASGCT represents researchers, clinicians, and other professionals from around the world dedicated to discovering and developing new genetic and cellular therapies. The ASGCT 13th Annual Meeting, May 19-22, 2010 in Washington, DC, will serve as a comprehensive forum dedicated to the exchange and dissemination of the latest research related to genetic and cellular therapies to treat and potentially cure diseases.

For additional information please visit the website at: http://www.asgct.org/am10/

11 / 13 / 2009 - The Office of Rare Diseases Research, National Institute of Health, is sponsoring a workshop which will be held in the Double Tree Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 11-12, 2010.

Intersection of Patient Registries, Biospecimen Repositories and Clinical Data

The Office of Rare Diseases Research, National Institute of Health, is sponsoring a workshop entitled ³Advancing Rare Disease Research: The Intersection of Patient Registries, Biospecimen Repositories and Clinical Data,² which will be held in the Double Tree Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, on January 11-12, 2010.

The workshop objective is to discuss the development of an infrastructure for an internet-based platform with common data elements utilizing a federated rare disease registry able to incorporate:

1. Existing rare disease registries

2. Patient organizations with no registry looking to establish one

3. Patients with no affiliation with a support group looking to belong to a registry

The expected outcome of the workshop is to gain acceptance of the concept of a federated rare disease patient registry and participation in creating this patient registry from as many curators of patient registries and other stakeholders as possible. Participating stakeholders will discuss harmonizing standardized common data elements, vocabulary, and open source software to enable the exchange of data and information to facilitate research collaborations. The purpose of this effort is to establish a rare disease registry to benefit the rare disease patient and research communities.

A link to the draft agenda is available at the bottom of the registration page http://www.rarediseases.info.nih.gov/patient_registries_workshop/addco

For additional information please contact: Yaffa Rubinstein (ORDR), rubinsty@mail.hig.gov

301-402-4338.

Sign Language Interpreters will be provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate in this should contact Yaffa Rubinstein (ORDR), rubinsty@mail.nih.gov 301-402-4338 and/or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

10 / 28 / 2009 - The Clinical Immunology Society is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2010 CIS / Baxter Scholarship Program......

The Clinical Immunology Society is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2010 CIS / Baxter Scholarship Program (http://www.clinimmsoc.org/opportunities/) which includes the Senior Fellowship Award (http://www.clinimmsoc.org/opportunities/awards/2010_scholarship_senior.php) and Junior Faculty Award (http://www.clinimmsoc.org/opportunities/awards/2010_scholarship_junior.php).

Thanks to a generous grant from Baxter BioScience, we are offering two (2) $60,000 grants to third or fourth year fellows-in-training and two (2) two-year $85,000 grants to junior faculty who have demonstrated a commitment to the study of primary immunodeficiency as a career path. Funding is to support the education and research endeavors of these individuals.

Please visit the CIS web site for complete application instructions for both awards. Links to the application sites can be found on the Opportunities (http://www.clinimmsoc.org/opportunities/) page. Please follow the submission instructions carefully. While you may return to the site at any time prior to the deadline to complete your application, you MUST have all of the supplemental materials uploaded when you submit your application. The deadline to submit an application is January 1, 2010. You will be notified of rejection or acceptance of an award in February 2010 and the awards will be given out in May 2010 at the First Primary Immune Diseases National Conference in Philadelphia, PA.

If you have questions regarding the status of your application, please contact the CIS National Office at info@clinimmsoc.org or +1 414 224 8095. If you experience technical difficulties while submitting an application, please refer to the technical support information.

Clinical Immunology Society

555 East Wells Street

Suite 1100

Milwaukee, WI 53202-3823

Phone: +1 414 224 8095

Fax: +1 414 272 6070

E-mail: info@clinimmsoc.org

Web: www.clinimmsoc.org