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High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia |
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HBPRCA Email Newsletter
September 2008
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Welcome to the 3rd quarterly newsletter
this year. The most important message is the imminent deadline for abstracts
for the annual scientific meeting. That’s right you have only until the end
of the week!!!!!! Don’t forget that
this years meeting is the 30th anniversary and we will be planning
some special events and competitions. Congratulations to Tye Dawood and Stephen Harrap who have been awarded the inaugural Franco-Australian Travel Awards to visit and work in France and also to Audrey Koïtka who was the recipient on the French side. Plans are well underway for the HBPRCA workshop to be held on the Wednesday before the annual Scientific meeting. The focus this year will be on human and animals devices used in cardiovascular research as well as on central blood pressure regulation. Further details below. Important
deadlines Friday 12
September is the close for the following: ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS Family tree submissions Competition submissions
Best wishes
Professor Geoffrey A Head |
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE from Stephen Harrap The ISH meeting in Berlin was a great
success, but the highlight was the Aussies’ Dinner! With about 50 people we
enjoyed fine food in a typically convivial atmosphere on one of those almost
balmy Berlin summer evenings. I’m already looking forward to the dinner in
Vancouver.
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MEETING NEWS from Kate Denton Abstract submissions for the 2008
Annual HBPRCA have been called for, with the deadline September 12th. We have
3 excellent invited speakers in Carlos Ferrario, David Sinclair and Bruce Neal.
In addition our student and post-doctorate members have the
opportunity to shine in award-related, showcase sessions, with the best of
the best receiving the British Hypertension Society award. Our 30th annual meeting promises to be a
really spectacular event. We anticipate a large turn out of old and new
members, with many additional social events planned as outline below. Looking
forward to seeing you all. Submit those abstracts now!! |
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WORKSHOP NEWS from Geoff Head Markus Schlaich, Kate Denton and Arduino Mangoni The preparations for THE HUMAN AND ANIMAL DEVICES
WORKSHOP to be held as a full day workshop on December 3, 2008 has taken
a new turn. As previously announced,
the morning sessions will focus on animal research with particular
attention to the use and application of telemetry devices. These
sessions will be sponsored by data Sciences International. The afternoon sessions will focus on human
devices and we are planning to cover various aspects related to blood
pressure measurement and assessment of cardiovascular function both in a
research and a more clinical environment. Devices we plan to cover include
the EndoPat System, a novel device to non-invasively assess “endothelial
function” and augmentation index, the BaroCor System to assess baroreflex
sensitivity, the Finometer Pro, a device to measure beat-to-beat blood
pressure and others. The principal idea is to give workshop participants an
unbiased view of the pro’s and con’s of each device and their performance in
a research and clinical setting. Due to
popular demand we will also be including the 5th Central
Blood Pressure Regulation Meeting: Future Directions and Controversies which will be held in the afternoon and run parallel
to the clinical devices workshop ·
The day will therefore cover a
diverse range of interests from basic techniques (morning) through to new
directions in blood pressure regulation (afternoon) and onto clinical
frontiers (afternoon). ·
There will be a modest
registration fee of $50 + GST, which will cover tea breaks, lunch and attendance
to any of the three sessions. ·
In the evening we will have a dinner at the
Mitre Tavern (5 Bank Place) about
1200m from the venue. ·
We would be very interested to
hear from potential workshop participants as the program is now being
finalised. Please forward your ideas to the
secretariat, hbprca@meetingsfirst.com.au |
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SOCIETY NEWS from Bruce Neal United Kingdom Our relationship with the
British Hypertension Society continues to thrive. Claudia McCarthy winner of the BHS Award will be attending the
Annual Meeting of the British Hypertension Society at Queens College, Cambridge
very shortly. We wish her all the best
for what will no doubt be an interesting experience! And we look forward to hearing from the
British Society shortly about who will be joining us for our meeting in
December. There has been considerable
interest expressed in the British meeting by our Society members over the
last few years and we have made a new arrangement such that Society members
can now attend. From next year, up to
ten members of the HBPRCA will be able to attend the closed annual scientific
meeting of the British Hypertension Society as guests of the president. You will have to cover your own travel
there but the subsidized registration fee will secure two nights of
accommodation and two days of entertainment, meals and drinks. We will remind everyone of this
opportunity once plans for next years meeting are known. France Arrangements for the inaugural Franco-Australian Exchange
have now been made. The French
Hypertension Society (SFHTA) will be supporting Audrey Koïtka in a two-month
fellowship with Mark Cooper in Melbourne.
In return we will be sending to Paris, Stephen Harrap to work with
Xavier Jeunemaitre and Tye Dawood to work with Jean-Luc Elghozi. Particular acknowledgement must be made of
Louise Burrell who secured from Servier Australia the funds to support the Australian
Fellows. United States Much as we have for France and
the UK we are now seeking to secure an exchange relationship with the Council
of High Blood Pressure Research at the American Heart Association. Through the efforts of our Corporate Liaison
(Louise Burrell again!) it seems that we may next year have funds to support
the travel of a fellow from our Society to the US conference of the
Council. Once we are able to confirm
this opportunity we will be in touch with details of how we propose to administer
the award. We are simultaneously
encouraging our US colleagues to designate a complimentary award that would
see a US fellow attend our annual meeting. |
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AUSTIN DOYLE LECTURER David Sinclair Many may have seen our invited
Austin Doyle Lecturer, David Sinclair, on the TV news on 5 June, as well as
newspaper articles such as the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/health/research/04aging.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Assoc Prof Sinclair, an Aussie
at Harvard, who did his PhD at UNSW, showed in a large article in Nature that
the red wine polyphenol, resveratrol, can prevent the adverse cardiovascular
and metabolic conditions (metabolic syndrome) that usually result in a mouse
model of obesity. Now clinical trials have shown a reduction in glucose in
type 2 diabetes patients, and further trials are in progress or planned. He
established a company, Sirtris Phama, in 2004, to develop more potent analogues
of resveratrol (since the concentrations in red wine are too low to have a
health benefit versus the toxic effects of alcohol). Sirtris listed on Nasdaq
in the middle of 2007. When I visited him in the lead up to this last year,
he mentioned some who had bought in (@ $100K minimum) or had otherwise
supported this, e.g., the President of the Boston Red Sox, Arnold
Schwarznegger, Oprah Winfrey, and other big names in the USA. The New York
Times article mentions that Sirtris was bought recently by GlaxoSmithKline
for $0.7 billion. This is an example of a great success story, both
scientifically and commercially, for one of our countrymen. David Sinclair
is, moreover, an excellent speaker. I am sure you will enjoy his talk at the
30th anniversary meeting when you attend the HBPRCA in Dec. |
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HBPRCA 30TH BIRTHDAY
CELEBRATIONS Student
introductions Getting to know and encouraging
the next generation of leaders in BP research is a major goal of the Council.
Therefore, we thought that it would be a good idea to “introduce” our
students at this year’s annual dinner. We would like to do this in the form
of a power point presentation that will loop for most of the night. We are
requesting that students provide the secretariat with their photo and some
salient points about themselves (no more than 50 words). This will help put
names and interests to student faces and facilitate convivial conversations. Our Family Tree
Competitions We would like to open the
following four competitions – 2 written and 2 photographic:
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MEMBERSHIP NEWS from Doug McKitrick With the HBPRCA Annual
Scientific Meeting coming up we once again remind supervisors that your
graduate students can enjoy free membership in the HBPRCA, putting your
students in the running for a number of prizes and awards recognising their
contributions to the field. This year is a significant year celebrating the
30th anniversary of the HBPRCA. The meeting will be an excellent opportunity
for you, your colleagues with an interest in high blood pressure research,
your postdocs and your graduate students to take part in an event that promises
to be both scientifically and socially exciting. As we strengthen our
clinical ties, we also remind you to consider who of your clinical colleagues
might be interested in membership with Australia’s premier society for
hypertension-related research and information. If you have specific comments or
concerns with your membership, or issues affecting membership generally,
accept the invitation to communicate them directly to the Membership
Secretary, Dr Doug McKitrick, via contact details available on the HBPRCA website. |
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AMBULATORY BLOOD
PRESSURE MONITORING (ABPM) WORKING GROUP INITIATIVE Members: Geoff Head, Susie
Mihailidou, Karen Duggan, Alexandra Bune, James Sharman, Arduino Mangoni,
Peter Howe, Narelle Berry, Diane Cowley, Michael Stowasser, Lawrie Beilin,
Jonathan Hodgson and John Chalmers At
present, while ABPM equivalents exist for the diagnosis of hypertension,
there are no ABPM equivalents for target blood pressure in the management of
hypertension. While the PAMELA study provided an ABPM
equivalent for the diagnostic level of 140/90, this study from Monza in Italy
does not readily provide ABPM equivalents for target blood pressures such as
125/75, nor is it necessarily relevant to the Australian population (Mancia G, Sega R, Bravi C, De Vito G,
Valagussa F, Cesana G, Zanchetti A. Ambulatory blood pressure normality:
results from the PAMELA study. J Hypertens. 1995;13:1377-1390). It is therefore important
to derive a robust algorithm, which can provide relevant ABPM target blood
pressures. Aim: This
HBPRCA clinical research collaborative initiative will collect clinic blood
pressure and ambulatory recordings from contributing centres (mostly hypertension
clinics) through out Australia in order to can provide sufficient data to
derive the Clinic- ABPM relationship which will also be able to account for
ethnicity, sex or age. Progress: So far we have collected over
five and a half thousand recordings from 5 states and the analysis is
ongoing. The working group is
convening shortly to finalise the analysis and prepare the results for
presentation at the annual meeting. Below is a table of the numbers of
participants, age, body mass index and ambulatory recording values which
considerably higher values of clinic and ambulatory values in the Australian
subjects even when adjusted for the PAMELA study age range? Table 1 Comparison of Pamela and
Australian Subjects (total and limited to the Pamela age range)
Table 2 based on a regression of
the clinic to ambulatory blood pressure, the calculated ambulatory values
corresponding to a clinic blood pressure of 140/90 which is the lower limit
of grade 1 hypertension based on the NHF guidelines 2008)
For further information please contact geoff.head@baker.edu.au Or Susie Mihailidou (amihaili@med.usyd.edu.au). |
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FOUNDATION FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE RESEARCH 2009 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship The Foundation is offering a two-year
postdoctoral fellowship for a research project in hypertension or related
fields in basic, clinical or public health areas at an Australian
institution. Applications from biomedical, clinical and public health
researchers are invited. Applications are open to
Australian citizens or permanent residents. It is expected that the
successful applicant will have had not less than five and not more than ten
years' postdoctoral experience. The fellowship provides a salary and modest
project maintenance costs. 2009 ISH Visiting Postdoctoral
Award The ISH Visiting Postdoctoral
Award has been designed to encourage experienced researchers from countries
other than Australia to work in Australia for up to two years on a specific
research project in hypertension or a related field in basic, clinical or
public health areas. The ISH Visiting Postdoctoral
Award will be awarded to an Australian research institution, as a
contribution towards the salary of a postdoctoral researcher who is not an
Australian citizen or permanent resident. Application Procedures For information on how to apply
please contact: FHBPR Secretariat Department of Physiology University of Melbourne Parkville 3010 Victoria, Australia Email: jkelly@unimelb.edu.au Applications
close on Friday 19 September 2008 Late
applications will not be considered |
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HEART FOUNDATION RESEARCH FUNDING information session The Heart Foundation
Research Program provides funding to researchers working in universities,
hospitals and recognised research institutions across Australia. We support
early to mid career researchers through funding for both people and projects.
Funding is provided across three categories: biomedical, clinical and public
health research. We award scholarships, fellowships, travel grants and
grants-in-aid.
To register for sessions, please visit www.heartfoundation.org.au/information_sessions
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FRED MENDELSOHN'S FESTSCHRIFT
1st and 2nd of December, 2008 Professor Fred Mendelsohn will
be retiring from the Directorship of the Howard Florey Institute at the end
of 2008. To mark this occasion a scientific meeting to celebrate Fred’s
contribution to health and medical research in Australia and internationally
is going to be held at the Howard Florey Institute, University of Melbourne.
The scientific program will
encompass the fields that have attracted Fred’s interest and endeavour and
will include Neuroscience and neurological diseases, Cardiovascular
regulation in health and disease, Endocrinology and G-protein-coupled
receptors. The program of basic and clinical science presentations promises
to be an informative and current discussion of the research areas supported
by Fred. The meeting will be held in the
lecture theatre of the Howard Florey Institute on the 1st and 2nd
of December, 2008. This is immediately prior to the scientific meeting of the
Australian High Blood Pressure Research Council. A dinner will be held on the evening of the 1st of
December. Further information regarding
registration and details of the scientific program is available at the
following web address http://fredschrift.florey.edu.au.
Expressions of interest in attending the conference can be emailed to fredschrift@florey.edu.au.
All are welcome to attend. |
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AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF MEDICAL
RESEARCH News Launch of Access Economics
Exceptional Returns II The ASMR has been
working hard to gather the data for a strong evidence based case for
increased funding to HMR. The ASMR commissioned Access Economics report
"Exceptional Returns: The Value of Investing in Australian Health
and Medical Research" was launched with the help of Sir Gus
Nossal at the National Press Club in Canberra on June 4. The study
follows the landmark 2003 report "Exceptional returns I" and
estimates the economic value of Australian Investment in HMR R&D
following the recent funding increases and includes case studies of 4
specific examples of well-being returns to Australia in diabetes, dementia,
cancer, and indigenous health. I am pleased to report that the study
demonstrates the continued excellent health and economic returns on
investment in the Australian HMR sector, and has been extremely well received
by all stakeholders. Thanks to the Access Economics team led by Lynne
Pezzullo, and the many supporters from the HMR sector that helped to fund this
important study. For the full report see: http://www.asmr.org.au/breakingnews.html The scene is now set for another
stellar Australian Health and Medical Research Congress (an initiative of
ASMR) that will be held at the Brisbane Convention Centre, November 16-21,
2008. An exciting multi-disciplinary scientific program comprising a
world-class line-up of over 200 national and 50 international speakers has
been finalised. Plenary speakers include international superstars Elaine
Fuchs, Roger Tsien, Josef Penninger, Steve Baylin, and Michael Karin. The
program also encompasses the ASMR National Scientific conference
"Epithelial Tissue Dynamics: From Stem Cells to Cancer", as well as
the national scientific conferences or sessions organised by an additional 34
societies and organizations. Travel bursaries are available for ASMR student
members, and generous prizes are on offer including the Merck Sharpe and
Dohme best poster award ($8000), and the CASS foundation best poster student
poster award ($5000). I encourage all members of attend what promises
to be an outstanding Congress. Early bird registration closes
tomorrow! Please see http://www.ahmrcongress.org.au/
for further details and online registration. ASMR has completed a survey of
its members to investigate the extent and effect of the monetary gap between
host institution salaries and the National Health and Medical Research
Council (NHMRC) Personnel Salary Packages (PSPs) and Fellowships. The
results paint a picture of the negative effect that the gap is having on the
HMR sector and will be available to stakeholders. See the August ASMR
newsletter for a summary of the results. Thanks to members for your
participation and support. Survey data will be posted on the ASMR website in
the near future. The recent 2008 ASMR Medical
Research Week® was another resounding success. Media monitoring
indicated that the HMR message generated from the week of activities reached
around 12.5 million people. One of the highlights of the many fantastic
events of the week was the national tour by the 2008 ASMR medallist Sir
Gustav Nossal. Sir Gus gave inspiring addresses at each of the state
dinners and to a national TV audience at the Press Club in Canberra. On
behalf of ASMR I would like to extend our sincere thanks to Sir Gus for his
outstanding effort in promoting HMR over the week. The hard-working state
committees are the backbone of ASMR MRW; thanks to each of the state
convenors and their teams for making the week such a great success - Suresh
Mahalingam (ACT), Naomi Rogers (NSW), Mike McGuckin (Qld), Cadence Minge
(SA), Morag Young (VIC), Tracey Dickson (TAS), Jason Kirkness and Sharon Pope
(WA). I would also like to thank Kristen Nowak (ASMR MRW convenor),
Rosemary Keogh (State committees convenor), Emma Parkinson-Lawrence (PR
Liaison), Maree Overall and Mike Pickford (ASN events), and the tireless
executive-office team of Cath West and Priscilla Diment.
We are pleased to announce the publication
in the Medical Journal of Australia the results of a pilot study "Perceptions
of Health and Medical Research Careers: The Australian Society for Medical
Research Workforce Survey". The survey of nearly 400 members gauged
views on career and funding opportunities, salary and quality of working
environment. Thank you for your participation and support. The study is
available from: http://www.asmr.org.au/breakingnews.html The 2007/8 Federal budget
announced in May included some excellent initiatives and indicate a promising
supportive future for the HMR sector. These were (i) the Future
Fellowship scheme for mid-career researchers (across all science fields
however the biomedical sector will hopefully receive a healthy number of
these), see below for further details, (ii) doubling the number of Australian
Postgraduate Awards for PhD and masters students, (iii) the $10 billion
Health and Hospital Fund, and (iv) the $11 billion Education Investment
Fund. The latter 2 initiatives are substantial funds for
infrastructure of which the HMR sector will hopefully receive allocations for
capital works at institutes and universities for both research and
teaching. However, it should be noted that one disappointing
outcome from the 2007/8 budget was the cutting of the Commercial Ready
Scheme. Hopefully the current Innovation Review will recommend a bigger
and better version of the previous scheme! The Federal government has
announced the creation of a new mid-career fellowship scheme, the
"Future Fellowships". The internationally competitive scheme is
aimed at providing support for top Australian-based researchers, an incentive
for Australian researchers overseas to return home to continue their work,
and to attract the best international researchers to our shores. The key points are: o Mid-career defined as 5 to 15 years since award of PhD (or equivalent) and allowing flexibility to account for family responsibilities o 200 new Fellowships a year for five years o Two salary levels roughly $95,000+28% on costs and $135,000+28% on-costs o Each year $50,000 per fellowship to go to the institution to support infrastructure, traveletc The Australian Research Council (ARC) is responsible for the implementation and ongoing administration of Future Fellowships. o The ARC envisages the following key dates will apply to the first round of the Future Fellowships scheme: o Funding rules made available in August 2008 o The closing time for submission of proposals will be in October 2008. o Announcement of Future Fellowships commencing in 2009 to occur in May 2009. o Future Fellowships to commence in the second half of 2009. |
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Athina Patti at Meetings First t 61 3 9739
7697 f 61 3 9739 7076 |
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HBPRCA would like to acknowledge the support of the
following companies: CORPORATE
MEMBERS
CORPORATE
SPONSORS
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MEETINGS IN 2008 |
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Heart
and Mind Psychogenic Cardiovascular Disease Conference 3 – 5 September 2008 Prato, Tuscany Click here for meeting website |
2nd
International Symposium on Pheochromocytoma 17 – 20 September 2008 Click here for meeting website |
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Annual
Scientific Meeting of the British Hypertension Society Click here for meeting website |
Japanese
Society of Hypertension Annual Scientific Meeting, celebrating it's 30th
anniversary ***HBPRCA members receive discounted registration fees*** 9 - 11 October 2008 Click here
for meeting website |
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4th AH & MR
Congress
16 - 21 November 2008 |
HBPRCA
2008 Annual Scientific Meeting 3 – 5
December 2008 Melbourne
Exhibition Centre Click here for
meeting website. |
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