CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR "Visit to Zambia" Essay Competition WINNERS!!!
Each of these scholars will receive $500.00 in prize money that will be applied towards the travel costs for attending the Neuroscience Retreat and Workshop in Zambia, scheduled for 13-17 June 2007. Each student will present their review at this meeting. The winners are:

Michael Siuta
"The interaction between affect and immune response: implications for HIV infection"
Medical Scientist Training Program, Vanderbilt University
Rotation Mentor: Karoly Mirnics, M.D.

Nicole Garbarini
"The neuron specific K-Cl cotransporter, KCC2, and epilepsy"
Vanderbilt Brain Institute Neuroscience Graduate Program, Vanderbilt University
Laboratory: Eric Delpire, Ph.D.

Thank you to all those who took the time to submit your entries! We look forward to seeing you all at upcoming the Zambian Neuroscience Retreat and Workshop: Lusaka, 13 – 17 June 2007!

The interest remains very high for our planned Zambian neuroscience retreat and workshop in June this year. We now have a local sub-committee comprising of Drs. Sanika Chirwa, Sarah Owens and Efrain Garcia who will continue to spearhead the planning aspects for this meeting including fund-raising activities. In the latter case, our goal is to raise at least $30,000 in short order to support, for example, graduate student travel (and their interest has been overwhelming!) and invited speakers. Thus far we have secured $2,000 from SfN and the prospects are fair for getting $6,000 from IBRO. However we still need to source the balance of at least $22,000.

The following you can consider to help:

1. Host a fund-raising dinner at the Vanderbilt Faculty Club. Invite a key-note speaker (e.g. Bill Frist, Al Gore or please recommend a guest) to assist with this effort.
2. Contact Deans, Chairs and/or Divisional Heads of graduate programs at Meharry and Vanderbilt and ask for student travel funds.
3. Contact local banks and business houses with significant ties with Meharry, Vanderbilt, TSU, and Fisk and seek their sponsorship. This may be in the form of “paid” advertisements in the meeting program brochure. If the above is not proper then suggest alternatives to this.
4. Solicit donations from members and some select well-wishers in the city (we all know one or more eminent citizens who may be willing to make a donation). In addition our members may wish to consider donating a portion of the honoraria received from attendance at NIH study sections or after speaking engagements.
5. Design and sell special edition of “neuroscience” t-shirts; MTNCSfN members in general, graduate students in particular, could be challenged to submit the best design and/or catchy phrases for the t-shirts.

Suffice to say the retreat and workshop in Zambia is our brainchild meant to engage all of us in promoting and implementing a worthy cause. This endeavor is unique but timely and it links well with the “new” global realization for the need to expand science activities to all regions of the globe (e.g. see below). Please give us your feedback indicating your support (or even objection) for the above ideas and/or giving us new avenues we should pursue to raise funds. Kindly communicate this information to the attention of Sanika Chirwa at schirwa@mmc.edu with a copy sent to terri.ray@vanderbilt.edu as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Sanika Chirwa, Ph.D., MTNCSfN President
Associate Professor, Physiology, Meharry Medical College
Adjunct Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University
(615) 327-6934; Email Address: schirwa@mmc.edu

INFECTIONS AND BRAIN DISEASE BURDEN
InterContinental Hotel
Lusaka, Zambia
13 – 17 June 2007

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MTNCSfN IBRO Travel Award Nominee

Jennifer Alaine Steiner,
Neuroscience Graduate Program, Blakely Lab

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2007 SfN Travel Awards to the IBRO World Congress: The Society is pleased to offer 15 travel awards in the amount of $1500 for outstanding graduate students from the US, Canada, and Mexico to attend the 2007 IBRO World Congress (http://www.ibro2007.org/), held every four years. This year, the conference will be held in Melbourne, Australia. Award recipients will be chosen on the basis of scientific merit of their abstract, evidence of community outreach, and letters of nomination from both the graduate student’s advisor and the local nominating chapter.

Sincerely,

Sanika Chirwa, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Physiology, Meharry Medical College
Adjunct Associate Professor Vanderbilt University
(615) 327-6934; Email Address: schirwa@mmc.edu

To join the Middle Tennessee Chapter Society for Neuroscience (MTNCSfN), click HERE.