Paul H. Patterson, Ph.D., world-renowned expert in the nervous and immune systems and the Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, will be the 30th annual James M. Cuozzo Memorial Lecturer at the 2009 CRRWH Annual Retreat on May 27 in the BRB II/III auditorium and lobby.

Dr. Patterson will address "Maternal infection: Window on neuroimmune interactions in fetal brain development, autism, and schizophrenia". His current cutting edge research includes a mouse model of mental illness based on the risk factor of maternal infection, the use of antibodies to treat Huntington's disease, and the mobilization of endogenous neural stem cells in the adult brain for remyelination in a model of multiple sclerosis.

Before joining the faculty at CIT, Dr. Patterson taught at Harvard Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree from Grinnell College in Iowa, and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He is director of the Caltech Training Program for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, as well as joint MD/PhD programs with UCLA and USC.

The Retreat offers a full day of talks by noted professors, postdoctoral researchers and clinical fellows and a poster session covering all aspects of reproduction and women's health research. There will be prizes awarded for the best posters and oral presentations. The Cuozzo lecture will be held at 4 p.m.

The Retreat is free; however, we request that you register online no later than May 1. To register and/or submit an abstract for poster or oral presentation, click to http://www.med.upenn.edu/crrwh/Retreat09/index.html

Call for Abstracts (Due no later than May 7)

All trainees (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical fellows) are encouraged to submit an abstract related to reproductive or women's health for a poster or an oral presentation. This is a great opportunity for you and your group to meet and interact with other Center members as well as members of the UPENN and CHOP research community. This is an excellent forum to showcase your current research.

Please feel free to submit an abstract and indicate whether you wish to give a poster or oral presentation. If you have no preference, we will decide for you. In the event that we have more abstracts designated for oral presentation than we have available time slots, we will choose the best abstracts for oral presentation and the remainder will be selected for poster presentation. You may submit more than one abstract.

Abstracts should include the following elements: background,objective, methods, results, and conclusions and should be no more than 350 words.

As soon as a decision has been made regarding whether or not your abstract will be presented as a poster or as an oral presentation, you will be notified. Notifications will be sent by May 7. The poster judging and luncheon begin at 12 p.m. in the BRB II/III Lobby. Accepted posters must be on display beginning 8:30 am. Poster presenters should be available during breaks and the luncheon period to discuss their posters with interested colleagues and to answer any questions that may arise.

Prizes will be awarded for the 3 best posters and best oral presentation.
For additional information call or e-mail Judith Wood at 215-898-0147, juwood@mail.med.upenn.edu.
********************************************
A Call for Award Nominations
For CRRWH Faculty only

One of the highlights of the CRRWH Retreat is the presentation of three special research awards: the Susan B. Heyner, Bayard T. Storey and Joseph C. Touchstone Awards for Excellence in Research. We would like to encourage you to nominate someone you feel is deserving of recognition.

The Research Award Instructions are included for your convenience. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me by phone at 215-898-0147 or e-mail: juwood@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Research Award Instructions. Submission Deadline May 7

Three research awards were established in honor of Professors Susan Heyner, Ph.D., Bayard T. Storey, Ph.D. and Joseph Touchstone, Ph.D. These three individuals have served the Division of Reproductive Biology, the CRRWH, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the University with distinction over the course of their careers as faculty. The awards are given on an annual basis to non-faculty trainees or staff within the Center for Research on Reproduction and Women's Health who have distinguished themselves by their research contributions during the past calendar year.

All CRRWH faculty are encouraged to nominate non-faculty trainees or staff within your laboratory or within the CRRWH who might be considered as candidates for the 2009 awards. The eligibility requirements for and restrictions of the awards are as follows:

1. All current non-faculty trainees (e.g., graduate students, post- docs, fellows, research associates) or staff in the CRRWH are eligible for these awards.

2. Candidates can be nominated more than once, but if they receive an award they lose any subsequent eligibility for any future awards (i.e., if a person wins an award as a graduate student he or she cannot be eligible for an award as a post-doc or fellow).

3. The accomplishments that are to be considered in making these awards would encompass the previous two calendar years (1-1-07 to 3-1-09). The major criterion for an award selection is the publication of an outstanding peer-reviewed paper (or papers if the work is logically continued into more than one paper, e.g., back-to- back publications) in a scientific or clinical journal. A paper in press can also be considered, but the "in press" status must be documented.

As the CRRWH faculty mentor, the following information pertaining to a nominee must be sent to the Awards Committee:

1. A copy of the publication(s) (published or in press) emanating from the work being performed by the candidate in the respective CRRWH investigator's lab that is to be used by the Awards Committee to assess the candidate's researchaccomplishments.

2. One letter in support of the candidate for the award by the nominating CRRWH faculty member. The letter must include information regarding the importance of the work in the paper to the particular scientific/clinical field, the candidate's contribution to this work, and any other information that will be of value to the Awards Committee in helping it make final decisions. In order to help the committee make a fair assessment of your nominee's work, please specifically comment on the following with regard to the candidate and the work that he or she performed in the
submitted paper:
*-intellectual driving force behind work
*-contribution with regard to the specific experiments
*-technical and intellectual involvement of the other authors in the work
*-writing of the paper

The complete application package should be forwarded to me by email (rsimmons@mail.med.upenn.edu). Any package that is not received in complete form by May 7 will not be considered.

Any letter received after this deadline will not be used in the decision making process. The Awards Committee with then meet and make the final recommendations for the awards. The awardees and their mentors will be notified by May 14 and are expected to attend the CRRWH Research Retreat, where the awardees will be acknowledged.

In addition to the acknowledgement of their receipt of the award, the awardees names will be placed on one of the research plaques, which are hanging in the hallway of the 13th floor of BRB II/III. As part of this honor, we will award a small monetary prize to be used at each awardee's discretion.

After I have received the nominations I will appoint an Awards Committee of CRRWH faculty members to review the papers and vote on the awardees. This will be done after the nominations are received so that there are no conflicts with the nominees and the committee members. If asked, I hope that you will help us out.The
workload would involve reading the papers and letters of all of the nominees and meeting one afternoon in early May to make the final decisions.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT STUDENTS, POST DOCS AND STAFF IN
ALL CRRWH FACULTY LABS ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THESE AWARDS.

Rebecca A. Simmons, M.D.
rsimmons@mail.med.upenn.edu