Need Metro D.C. Area rep. for lung cancer advocacy

[KatieB]

Hey guys,

I was sent this today and unfortunately I can't go and I am no where near D.C.

I would love for lung cancer to have a voice at this review. Many large org.s are asking for cancer funding and if we make our voices heard, maybe lung cancer can get a piece of the pie instead of just crumbs when it comes to governmental funding.

Here are the details:

For those who are interested and availbale in the Washington DC Metro area:

MEETING REMINDER – NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH) CONSULTATION MEETING WITH ADVOCACY GROUPS ON PEER REVIEW

You are invited to attend a consultation meeting with advocacy groups on the NIH peer review process, hosted by the Peer Review Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of NIH. Meeting logistics are as follows:

Date/Time: October 22, 2007, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Place: The Hilton Washington, 1919 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20005 (Main: 202-483-3000). The nearest Metro Station is DuPont Circle.

This consultation meeting will be an excellent opportunity for us to gain valuable input and feedback from advocacy groups and we encourage your scientific leadership and/or official representative(s) from your organization to join us and to actively participate in this unique opportunity for a face-to-face dialogue.

The meeting agenda allows opportunity for volunteer participants to make a brief presentation offering specific strategies or tactics for enhancing NIH peer review and research support. If you are interested in making a presentation, we ask that you notify Dr. Vesna Kutlesic (kutlesicv@od.nih.gov) by COB Tuesday, October 16, with a brief summary of your idea. Depending on the number of statements received, we may select a subset, thereby avoiding redundancy and ensuring that we keep to the allotted time. We will be contacting authors of presentations selected for the final program by Friday, October 19th. The meeting agenda is posted on the peer review website, through the calendar of events / October 22, 2007: http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/ .

Please note that the majority of meeting time will be devoted to open discussion, so there will be numerous opportunities to offer input. As you prepare for the meeting, we would like to emphasize that this current study is broader than many past efforts; the goal is to optimize the current system used by NIH to support the biomedical and behavioral research and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the two-tiered peer review process. We welcome suggestions about the review process per se, as well as suggestions regarding the structure of our grant mechanisms, how to facilitate review, and how best to reduce the time spent by scientists applying for grants rather than doing science. We are especially interested in creative suggestions, even if they involve radical changes to the current approach. Please visit the following website for a listing of our core peer review questions: (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/noti ... 7-074.html)

To register for the October 22 meeting, please visit our peer review website at

http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/ . The website provides a registration link (through the calendar of events) as well as a general overview to this effort. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ms. Kerry Brink (brinkk@od.nih.gov).

We look forward to seeing you there!

Best Regards,

Keith R. Yamamoto, Ph.D.,

University of California-San Francisco

Co-Chair, Peer Review Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director

Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.,

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, NIH

Co-Chair, Peer Review Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director