Dear NASCE members,
I trust all NASCE members have had a successful 2018-2019 academic year. After a winter in which we experienced severe weather patterns in different parts of continental N. America, as well as volcanic activities in Hawaii, I hope you are all enjoying spring and looking forward to your exciting and productive summer plans whether it be research or some relaxation.
We are all set for the 5thBiennial NASCE meeting to be held at the University of Florida, Gainesville (May 24-28, 2019). This meeting is also a joint meeting with ISAREN. I would like to thank Dr. Chris Martyniuk and his colleagues on the LOC team, as well as members of the NASCE 2019 Meeting Scientific Committee and Meeting Program Subcommittee, for all their hard work. An exciting scientific program consisting of a total of 21 oral symposium sessions and 7 plenary lectures awaits all attendees of the meeting. Trainee presentation competitions (oral and poster) are also going to be held at the meeting and the winners will be presented their awards at the start of the closing banquet. Arrangements have also been made for meeting proceedings to be published as a special issue of General and Comparative Endocrinology.
I am excited to announce our 2019 Gorbman-Bern Award winners. The recipient of the Gorbman-Bern Memorial Lecture is Dr. Peter Thomas whose research contributions on various aspects of steroid signalling, reproductive endocrinology, and environmental toxicology (among many other related areas) are particularly well-known in the area of comparative endocrinology. The recipient of the Gorbman-Bern New Investigator Award is Dr. Jason Breves who has made significant contributions to the understanding of endocrine regulation of ion transport in various epithelial tissues; in particular, the actions of prolactin, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factors. Congratulations to our two 2019 winners and I look forward to their plenary presentations at the Gainesville meeting.
At the upcoming May NASCE meeting, Drs. Carlos Arámburo, Steve Harvey and Yun-Bo Shi would have completed their tenure as NASCE councillors. I would like to thank them for their service to the society as council members. Election for NASCE council members has also been completed. Please join me in congratulating and welcoming Dr. Yun Bo-Shi, the incoming Vice-president/President Elect; Dr. Angela Lange who will be continuing as our Secretary (2ndterm); Drs. Jean-Paul Paluzzi, Pierre Deviche, and Cheryl Rosenfeld who were re-elected to a 2ndterm in council; and the two new council members – Dr. Suraj Unniappan and Dr. Matt Vijayan. A big thank you to all who agreed to stand for re-election/election for all the open positions.
Safe travels and I look forward to meeting many of you in Gainesville.
John Chang
President, NASCE