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NIH's intramural Research Festival marks its 10th anniversary this year. In honor of the occasion, festival director Henning Birkedal-Hansen wants to do something old and something new at the Sept. 16-20 event: revive VIP posters and begin a job fair for NIH postdocs. Birkedal-Hansen, who is NIDR's scientific director, got the idea for the VIP posters from a scientist who gave a command poster presentation at the first Research Festival, NIDR's Abner Notkins. "People thought the VIP poster session was great," says Birkedal-Hansen. "It gave the postdocs a chance to talk to NIH's top scientists-who are world leaders in their fields." This year, the VIP posters will not be set off in their own session, but will be presented alongside posters from NIH postdocs and other scientists. Invited VIP presenters are expected to include institute directors, scientific directors, and maybe even Deputy Director for Intramural Research Michael Gottesman and NIH Director Harold Varmus. At the Sept. 18 job fair, NIH's Office of Education and the Foundation for the Advancement of Education in the Sciences will arrange job interviews and meetings between NIH postdocs and representatives of biotechnology firms, many of whom will be on hand for the festival's tent show for biomedical suppliers on Sept. 19-20. The 1996 Research Festival will open at 8 a.m. Sept. 16 at the Natcher Conference Center with a symposium on prion diseases. The symposium will be followed by a poster session from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. About a dozen workshops will run simultaneously from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., and a second poster session will follow from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The program for Sept. 17 will follow the same schedule, starting with a symposium on the genetics of complex disorders. A searchable program of events will be posted on the World Wide Web (http://mantis.dcrt.nih.gov/festival/). For more information, contact Gregory Roa at the NIH Visitor Information Center (phone: 496-1776; e-mail: gr25v@nih.gov). |