Highlights from the 2009 CFAR Fall Scientific Retreat

Judging from all of the highly enthusiastic feedback that I’ve received over the past few days, this year’s CFAR Retreat was a rousing success and, by most accounts, the best one yet!!  Congratulations and many thanks to all of the CFAR members who participated.  Additional congratulations to Anya Drabkin for the most outstanding poster presentation, and to Sarah Lofgren for the best oral presentation among the 30 abstracts submitted.  From my standpoint, the most important improvement over last year was the additional time (and space) allotted for the poster presentations.  It was truly refreshing to witness the extensive interactions between poster presenters and CFAR members, in a ‘group mentoring session’.  Numerous presenters personally acknowledged the valuable feedback they received regarding their individual research projects.  We have received quite a few requests for access to the oral presentations that took place throughout the day, so we’ve posted the respective Powerpoint presentations from the individual presenters who have consented to make them available on the CFAR public website (see below).  Please continue to provide us feedback regarding topics for future Chalk Talks and potential speakers for the CFAR Seminar Series.  We are also quite interested in featuring recent publications and funded research applications by our CFAR members.  Also, try to regularly check the website for continuous updates on CFAR-related events.  As mentioned at the Retreat, our next major event will be the 5th Annual Matthews Lecture, this year celebrating 25 years of AIDS research at Duke and featuring Dr. Robert C. Gallo as this year’s speaker.  Please plan on joining us in the Griffith Film Theater on November 13th at 4PM and the reception that follows.  Many thanks again to all for their continued enthusiastic support of the Duke CFAR.

 

Kent J. Weinhold, Director