In Brief

Burton Featured in Nature Medicine
The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) Professor Dennis Burton is profiled in the April 2003 issue of Nature Medicine. The article begins, "In HIV vaccine research—where the stakes are high both scientifically and financially—it is rare to find a scientist as universally liked as Dennis Burton."


Seminar on AAAS Fellowship in Science and Technology Policy
Are you interested in the interaction of science, technology, and government in the United States and around the world? Would you like to participate in the public policy-making process of the federal government? The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Programs provide opportunities for postdoctoral to mid-career scientists and engineers to contribute to federal decision-making in Washington, D.C., while learning how government works. A seminar will feature two former fellows: Ashwin Vasvada, Ph.D. in Planetary Science, Congressional Fellow, 2000-2001; and Elizabeth Wadolkowski-Gordon, Ph.D. in Microbiology, Diplomacy Fellow, 1990-91. The event will be held in the Valerie Timken Amphitheater, Scripps Green Hospital, on Tuesday, April 15, from 2 to 3:30 PM. For more information about the fellowship program, see www.fellowships.aaas.org.


New English-as-a-Second-Language Class Begins
A new English-as-a-second-language class will begin Tuesday, April 22. Instructor Cassandra Wadkin's class meets from 6:30 to 8:30 every Tuesday evening in the Immunology Building West Conference Room. The price for three months (12 classes) is $60. Each intermediate-level English class is divided into speaking and listening, idioms and vocabulary, and reading and writing. If you would like to improve your English communication skills and better understand your friends and colleagues, movies, television shows, and the news, this class is for you. The instructor uses movies, games, television shows, grammar books, songs, drawing, and novels to teach standard American English. For more information, please leave a message at x4-2176.


Don't Miss the Spring Craft Fair
TSRI's Spring Craft Fair will be held on Thursday, April 17, from 11 AM to 2 PM in the Immunology Galleria. The crafts for sale will include jewelry, ceramics, soaps, airplants, chocolates, handmade quilts, cards, and decorative pillows. For more information, contact Bonnie Towle, x4-2146 or e-mail btowle@scripps.edu.


Tips on Changing Medical Coverage
If you are enrolled in or eligible for TSRI's medical plan and have a "status change" affecting coverage, please remember to submit a Benefits Coverage Change Form to Human Resources within 31 days. Changes that enable you to add coverage include marriage, attainment of domestic partnership status, birth or adoption of a child, legal entry of a dependent into the United States, or loss of other health coverage for yourself or dependent. Changes that enable you to drop coverage include divorce, termination of domestic partnership status, dependent reaching ineligible age/status, death of a dependent, or dependent obtaining other coverage. If coverage is not added or dropped within 31 days of a status change, you will be required to wait until TSRI's next Open Enrollment period to make the change. Please contact Benefits Administration at x4-8487 or benefits@scripps.edu to request a Benefit Coverage Change Form or access the form on the web.