Vol 8. Issue 16 / May 12, 2008

Etcetera


Office of Philanthropy Announces Two New Grant Awards
The Scripps Research Institute Office of Philanthropy announces two new grants for investigators resulting from its Foundations and Corporate Relations program:

  • Assistant Professor Kerri Mowen will receive a Young Career Scientist Award from the Donald and Delia Baxter Foundation, an organization that is committed to helping prepare and support new investigators as they begin their careers. By providing support for the critical early stage of career development, the foundation enables new scientists to develop preliminary data and build their research programs to the point where they can compete effectively for federal or other external funding. The award to Mowen will support her work on the regulation of the immune response by arginine methylation enzymes.

  • Associate Professor Anne Hanneken will receive a grant from the Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Foundation, an organization that supports the advancement of medicine and pharmacy, including scientific research, post-graduate scholarship and fellowship assistance, and studies in nutrition, blindness, deafness and other physical disabilities. The award to Hanneken will fund research on the ability of flavonoids to prevent oxidative stress and cell death in the retina, with the long-term goal of developing preventative therapies for people at high risk for macular degeneration and blindness.

In addition to these awards, both foundations will support graduate student fellowships in the coming year. The Baxter Foundation will support two scholarships; the Pfeiffer Foundation, three.


Scripps Research Hosts Immunology Symposium
The Scripps Research Department of Immunology and Microbial Science presents "Perspectives in Immunology Symposium - Special Presentations by Five Outstanding Authorities" on Monday, May 12, from 8:45 AM to 3:30 PM. The symposium will be held in the Valerie Timken Auditorium, Scripps Green Hospital, on the La Jolla, California, campus.

The program will proceed as follows:

8:15-8:30 AM: Coffee , etc.

8:45 AM:  Introduction by Scripps Research Professor Arygrios Theofilopoulos

9 AM: Tadatsugu Taniguchi of the University of Tokyo, will speak on "Recognition, Signaling and Transcription in the Innate Immune System"

10 AM: Bruce Beutler of Scripps Research will speak on "Innate Immune Sensing and Response"

11 AM: Laurence Zitvogel of INSERM, Institute Gustave Roussey, will speak on "Apoptosis and Innate Tumor Immunity"

12-1:30 PM: Lunch break

1 PM: Coffee etc.

1:30 PM: Daniel Kastner of the Genetics and Genomics Branch, NIAMD, will speak on "The Systemic Autoinflammatory Diseases: Inborn Errors of Innate Immunity"

2:30 PM: Daniel Douek of the Vaccine Research Center, NIH, will speak on "HIV Disease: Immune Activation, Microbes and Leaky Gut"

4–5 PM: Reception, BECKMAN Galleria

Attendance is free; all members of the La Jolla/San Diego scientific community are cordially invited. The symposium is organized by Argyrios Theofilopoulos and Richard Ulevitch. For more information, contact Theofilopoulos at 858 784-8135 or argyrio@scripps.edu.

 

Send comments to: mikaono[at]scripps.edu