Scientific Director on the Job and on the Road

In her role as scientific director for the Association, Suzanne Vernon, PhD, has hit the ground running, literally—making trips to scientific meetings, visiting with researchers and sharing CFS science with public policymakers. Here’s a sampling of where she’s been in the past month and where she’s heading in the near future:

• Dr. Vernon has been facilitating discussion to develop a “mini-network” of independent investigators working at six institutions in the New York City area. She lead them in a meeting in New York on March 24. Dr. Vernon has also been working to facilitate another collaborative network between investigators in Chicago and Canada.
• Dr. Vernon and Association president & CEO Kim McCleary attended the March 3-4 NIH conference on its PROMIS initiative—Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information Systems—to better understand this evolving research tool and its potential benefit to CFS studies.
• On March 4 Dr. Vernon gave a seminar at the NIH as part of the Integrative Neural Immune Network series. Her presentation titled “Neuroendocrine and Immune Network Remodeling in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” was well-received by a group of about 20 intramural scientists.
• On March 5 Dr. Vernon and Association president & CEO Kim McCleary met with senior health and legislative staffers to House and Senate appropriators and authorizers about CFS research and policy issues. See story.

Looking Ahead:

• Dr. Vernon and Association president & CEO Kim McCleary will travel to Osaka and Kobe, Japan, for meetings on April 10-11 with researchers working at the country’s Fatigue Science Institute led by Drs. Yasuyoshi Watanabe and Hirohiko Kuratsune. Dr. Katherine Rowe, a CFS clinician who practices in Australia, will also take part in the meeting. The hope is to better understand Japan’s large multidisciplinary research program, establish new collaborations and develop more active “translation” of Japanese studies to scientists around the world working on CFS. See story.
• When Dr. Vernon returns from Japan, she’ll review the Letters of Intent received in response to the CFIDS Association's Request for Applications for CFS research grants. Research applicants who meet all the eligibility guidelines will be invited to submit full proposals for peer review.
• Dr. Vernon will present a CFS talk at the scientific program of the TMJ Association’s annual meeting in June and will give a presentation at the Karolinska Instituet in Stockholm, Sweden, in August. She has been in regular contact with HHV-6 Foundation conference organizers to facilitate the Association’s sponsorship of the Foundation’s satellite meeting on CFS and viruses, planned for June 22-23 in Baltimore.

To learn more about Dr. Vernon and her role with the CFIDS Association, see “Meet Dr. Suzanne Vernon” (in PDF format). To learn more about the Association’s role in CFS research, look for the story in the spring 2008 issue of the CFIDS Chronicle coming out in May. Subscribe now.

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