February 4, 2008

• A. CIRA SPONSORED AIDS SEMINARS
• B. CIRA MEETINGS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
• C. OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

A. CIRA SPONSORED AIDS SEMINARS

1. NEW! YACS @ CIRA Seminar Series
   
   Date/Time: 02/14/08, 12:00 P.M. – 1:30 P.M.
   Title: "Confronting XDR TB in rural South Africa"
   Speaker(s): Gerald H. Friedland, M.D., Director, AIDS Program-Yale New-Haven Hospital and Yale University
   Sponsor(s): Co-sponsored by CIRA and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies.
   Location: CIRA, Ste # 200, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
   Contact: Please RSVP to Betsy Williams (betsy.williams@yale.edu). For more information or directions, please call 764-4333, or visit the YACS @ CIRA Web site: http://cira.med.yale.edu/events/yacs.html.
2. NEW! Research in Progress Seminar Series
   
   Date/Time: 02/15/08, 2:00 P.M. – 3:30 P.M.
   Title: "Life Style, Psychosocial Situation and Medical Services Seeking Behaviors Among HIV Sero-Positive Men Who Have Sex With Men: a Cross-Sectional Study in 2 Cities in China"
   Speaker(s): Guodong Mi, M.D.,M.P.H, International Trainee
   Sponsor(s): Office of International Training (OIT), CIRA
   Location: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 202, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
   

B. CIRA MEETINGS/ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. THIS WEEK! Peer Review
   Date/Time: 02/07/08, 2:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.
   Location: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 223, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
   NOTE: CIRA peer review provides an opportunity to enhance the quality of grant proposals and manuscripts written by CIRA scientists by sharing them with a multidisciplinary group of colleagues. The spirit of CIRA peer review is one of collegiality and respect; peer review is constructive rather than evaluative. Investigators use the feedback they receive as they see fit. We encourage you to have your proposal reviewed early in its development. If you would like to submit a grant proposal or manuscript for peer review, please contact Jon Atherton (jon.atherton@yale.edu; 764-4351).
2. THIS WEEK! Executive Committee Meeting
   Date/Time: 02/07/08, 10:30 A.M. - 11:30 A.M.
   Location: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 202, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
3. THIS WEEK! Interdisciplinary Research Methods (IRM) Core Meeting
   Date/Time: 02/08/08, 1:00 P.M. - 2:30 P.M.
   Location: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 202, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
4. Community Research (CR) Core Meeting
   Date/Time: 02/13/08, 9:00 A.M. - 10:30 A.M.
   Location: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 202, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
5. NEW! Peer Review
   Date/Time: 02/18/08, 2:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.
   Location: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 223, 135 College Street, New Haven, CT
   NOTE: CIRA peer review provides an opportunity to enhance the quality of grant proposals and manuscripts written by CIRA scientists by sharing them with a multidisciplinary group of colleagues. The spirit of CIRA peer review is one of collegiality and respect; peer review is constructive rather than evaluative. Investigators use the feedback they receive as they see fit. We encourage you to have your proposal reviewed early in its development. If you would like to submit a grant proposal or manuscript for peer review, please contact Jon Atherton (jon.atherton@yale.edu; 764-4351).

C. OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. NEW! THIS WEEK! Global Health Week - Movie Screening: "The Blood of Yingzhou District"
   
   Date: February 5, 2008, 4:00 P.M.
   2007 Academy Award® winner for Best Documentary Short Subject, The Blood of Yingzhou District is a groundbreaking documentary film which exposes the hidden AIDS epidemic in China, a country not commonly associated with this disease. Shot with small-format cameras entirely by Chinese film crews, The Blood of Yingzhou District achieves a level of intimacy and candor rarely seen in documentary work from China.
   Sponsor: The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University
   Location: Auditorium, Henry R. Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven CT
   This special screening will be followed by a panel discussion with:
   Hongping Tian (moderator) - Director, Health Programs, Yale-China Association
   Dr. Guodong Mi - China Multidisciplinary AIDS Prevention Training Program, Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA),
   Lin Han - China Multidisciplinary AIDS Prevention Training Program, Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA),
   Xianhong Li - Yale Nursing School
   Contact: For more information on Global Health Week Monday, February 4 – Saturday, February 9 please go to: http://www.yale.edu/globalhealthweek/events2008.html
2. NEW! THIS WEEK! Global Health Week: “HIV/AIDS, Stigma, and Scaling up Treatment for the Poor in Latin America.”
   
   Date: February 6, 2008, 7:00 P.M.
   Speaker: Arachu Castro, Harvard School of Public Health/ Partners in Health
   Sponsor: Council of Latin American and Iberian Studies
   Location: Room 317, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High St, New Haven, CT
   Contact: For detailed information on any event at the Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, please visit the web at http://opus.macmillan.yale.edu/cgi-bin/view/webevent.cgi?cmd=list2week&calID=49
3. NEW! CALL FOR PAPERS! “New Weapons Needed to Fight HIV”
   
   Deadline: March 3, 2008
   In August 2008, JAMA will publish a theme issue devoted to HIV/AIDS to coincide with the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. As with the last HIV/AIDS theme issue in 2006, JAMA welcomes submission of evidence-based papers on HIV prevention and treatment for consideration. They are particularly interested in submission of reports of original research, especially randomized controlled trials of HIV therapies. Other topics of interest include HIV-related basic science and its clinical application, epidemiology, and behavioral and preventive interventions. Submissions with relevance to international settings would also be welcome, as well as systematic reviews, special communications, commentaries, and economic analyses. All submissions will undergo rigorous editorial review and, if considered of interest, will be sent for peer review with no advance guarantee of publication. The JAMA Instructions for Authors should be consulted when preparing and submitting manuscripts. Papers received by March 3, 2008, will have the best chance for consideration for the 2008 HIV/AIDS theme issue.
4. NEW! UPDATE! “Eighth Annual Summer Institute on Randomized Clinical Trials Involving Behavioral Interventions”
   
   Date: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
   Location: Airlie Conference Center, Virginia
   Application Due Extended to Date: February 8, 2008
   The objective is to provide a thorough grounding in the conduct of randomized clinical trials to researchers and health professionals interested in developing competence in the planning, design, and execution of clinical trials involving behavioral or social interventions.
   Organized by: the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
5. NEW! NIH Fiscal Policy for Grant Awards - FY 2008 (NOT-OD-08-036)
   
   Sponsor:National Institutes of Health (NIH)
   This Notice provides guidance about the NIH Fiscal Operations Plan for FY2008 and it implements the FY 2008 Congressional action that provided NIH with $29.2 billions or 1 percent more than FY 2007 funding. The NIH will continue to manage its portfolio of investments in biomedical research as described in the FY 2007 Fiscal Policy Notice (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-030.html and http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not-od-07-049.html. This includes continuing to address the need for a highly productive pool of researchers by providing support for new investigators and sustaining established investigators, who have little or no additional research support. For more information please go to: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-036.html
6. NEW! Announcing the FY 2008 NIH Director’s Bridge Awards (NOT-OD-08-037)
   
   Sponsor:National Institutes of Health (NIH)
   As indicated in previous announcements regarding the financial operating policy for FY 2008 (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-036.html and http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/financial/index.htm). the NIH is taking specific steps to continue the support available to investigators whose R01 applications receive review scores near the Institute or Center nominal payline and who have limited additional support. This approach was reinforced with the enactment of P.L. 110-161: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008. This announcement updates and expands the NIH Director’s Bridge Award (NDBA), which was initiated in FY 2007. The NDBA provides continued but limited bridge funding for meritorious investigators who just miss the funding cutoff and have minimal support from other sources. The continued funding will permit the Principal Investigator additional time to strengthen a resubmission application. An NDBA recipient will receive R56 awards for a single year. For more information please go to: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-037.html
7. Yale University's "14th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference"
   
   Date: February 22 – 24, 2008
   The Rebellious Lawyering Conference is an annual, student-run conference that brings together practitioners, law students, and community activists / advocates from around the country to discuss innovative, progressive approaches to law and social change. For more information and to register, please see: http://islandia.law.yale.edu/reblaw/.