ANNOUNCEMENT
ANNOUNCEMENT
Professor of Medicine ESBRA President
During the 15th Meeting of the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism in Canterbury (UK), a new Board of Directors and a new President of the Society were elected and in the meantime have started their work for the next 4 years.
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to the past President, Professor Christer Alling and all the members of the former Board for their strong commitment and the successful work performed by them to the benefit of the entire Society.
Let me take this opportunity to introduce myself and to share my ideas and views of the Society's future with you. In general, I want to continue the adopted pathway and try to strengthen and fortify our Society by focusing on some topics and issues which I consider to be of high priority and which I would like to outline briefly in the following:
As an internist specialized in Gastroenterology and Hepatology I am aware of the fact that I am the first clinician presiding this Society. I am also aware that it may be very difficult to fulfill all your expectations following the outstanding achievements of my predecessors, Professors Christer Alling and Philippe DeWitte, and especially the founder of our Society, Professor Roger Nordmann. Nevertheless, I will do my very best to stabilize and expand the Society at a difficult time where only limited financial resources are available resulting in an extremely competitive situation.
From a first brief analysis of the members of our Society I realized that we have a strong group of basic scientists, but to a much lesser degree of clinicians. Hopefully, I can convince more of my clinically active colleagues to join us. We are an extremely heterogeneous Society with members from various areas of alcohol research including psychiatry, psychology, epidemiology, basic science, forensic medicine, and clinical research, to name only a few. Although at a first glance, this heterogeneity reflects a disadvantage since scientific organizations of today are becoming more and more specialized guaranteeing high quality in small, precise areas. However, at a second glance, I believe this heterogeneity also offers us great opportunities.
As you all know we are presently living in a scientific world which is extremely competitive since only limited financial sources are available, at least in Europe. If we understand our Society as a platform for exchange and cooperation we could take a huge advantage of the fact that we are all interested in one major topic, namely ALCOHOL. If we approach an alcohol-associated problem or question from various angles and illuminating various aspects, we certainly could compete much better for grant support. Thus, it is my deep conviction that our Society has the strength to compete successfully by joining forces and by initiating cooperations in the field of Alcohol Research performed by various European laboratories. Such cooperations have already been started in the past and should be intensified in the future. I am also deeply convinced that we will only be successful if we feel as members of one Alcohol Research family with similar driving forces, united by the same interests and goals.
In close cooperation with the Board and with the support of the members of our Society I would like concentrate on the following three issues which, of course, are closely linked to each other:
- Organization of the ESBRA meetings on the highest scientific level possible
- Increase of financial support for ESBRA
- Increase of the number of ESBRA members
ESBRA meetings have always been of good scientific quality and this should also be guaranteed in the future. Scientific meetings have to cover all aspects of Alcohol Research so that they interest all of us. The quality of a meeting is represented by the quality of the active participants. Therefore, it is important that up-to-date topics are presented by excellent scientists. To guarantee the quality of the meetings, obviously financial support is necessary. The Board of Directors will try to establish a state-of-the-art lecture by inviting an outstanding international scientist to the biannual meetings. For the next meeting which will take place in Berlin, Germany in 2007, the Falk Foundation, Freiburg/Germany has agreed to sponsor such a state-of-the-art lecture.
Furthermore, it was the idea of the Board to create a new award for Alcohol Research. I was successful in getting the necessary support from Mr. Manfred Lautenschläger, chairman of the board of directors of MLP, Heidelberg, one of the great German maecenas and patrons of German medicine to fund such a new ESBRA award. The Manfred Lautenschläger Award for European Alcohol Research will be granted for the first time in 2007 on occasion of the 16th ESBRA congress in Berlin, Germany. The 25,000 Euro prize will be awarded to a scientist for his or her achievements in Alcohol Research linked to a proposal for a research project which is covered by the prize sum. Thus, this scientific award is the highest endowed prize in Alcohol Research worldwide and will hopefully contribute to further strengthen European Alcohol Research.
In this context I would like to inform you about the forthcoming ESBRA events. The 10th Roger Nordmann Award Meeting and thus the 20th Anniversary will take place in Paris, France on April 13th, 2006. Professor Renaud has organized the meeting entitled "Brain Imaging and Addictions". The program looks very promising and stimulating and I invite you to visit our website for further information and to attend this meeting in Paris.
Our next regular biannual ESBRA meeting will be held in Berlin, Germany on September 23th–26th, 2007. The meeting will be organized by Profs. Rommelspacher, Lochs and Heinz from the Humbold University in Berlin.
The 11th Nordmann Award Meeting in the consecutive year (2008) will take place in Sardinia and Dr. Giancarlo Colombo, our Vice President, will organize this conference.
As you know, in 2006 the ISBRA Congress will take place in Sydney, Australia. We are presently planning to have an ESBRA/ISBRA joint meeting on this occasion entitled "From Animal Models to Human Treatment Trials" as well as a symposium representing European Alcohol Research organized by ESBRA.
In addition,we will generally try to embed ESBRA satellite symposia into other European congresses with appropriate topics.
Our meetings may act as a predominantly informative exchange platform. Furthermore, we have decided to extend the information on our website. Our secretary has received two letters from Ms. Sabah Kelai, a young PhD student from Paris working in neuropsycho-pharmacology with excellent suggestions to improve the information available on our website. I am very thankful for these ideas. We will provide a list of ESBRA members' laboratories indicating if there are any jobs available. In addition, possible funds for Alcohol Research, funding possibilities and contact addresses to obtain further information regarding these issues will be available. We will also try to indicate the major scientific focus of the laboratories and, if possible, obtain the latest publications. I hope very much that with some of these approaches we can make our Society stronger and enhance its attractivity so that more people become interested in joining us.
Finally, I have a personal, urgent request to all of you: Please inform your colleagues and friends about our Society. Convince them to join us. Only if everybody adds a small piece of support to the Society, if every member of the Society supports its structure shall we become a strong and successful team. It depends on all of us. Every single member plays an important part in our Alcohol Research family. Please keep this in mind, attend our meetings regularly and help to improve them.
If you have any special requests or ideas for improvement, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.
I wish all of you a Happy, Healthy and Successful 2006.
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Sincerely yours,
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