President's Message: June - July 2015

June-July 2015


It is a pleasure to provide this brief update on ANA events.  Perhaps the most important news is that Dr. David Holtzman has been nominated to be the next ANA President-elect.  Pending approval of the full membership, Dr. Holtzman will assume this position at our annual meeting in September, when Dr. Stanley Prusiner becomes the President of the ANA.  Dr. Holtzman is the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also the associate director of the university’s Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.  Dr. Holtzman has a longstanding research interest in Alzheimer's disease and brain injury. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Neurology’s 2003 Potamkin Prize for Research on Alzheimer’s, Pick’s and Related Diseases, as well as a 2004 MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences.  It should also be noted that Dr. Holtzman has a strong record of service on committees in the ANA.  We are fortunate indeed to have his continuing leadership in the ANA.

On another positive note, I am pleased to report that in 2014, the ANA ended the year with the highest total membership in the organization’s history. Moreover, this year, months in advance of our annual meeting, we have already surpassed that number.  This increase in membership bodes well for many ANA activities, importantly including our annual ANA meeting which will be held September 27 – 29, 2015, in Chicago.  Remarkably, this will be our 140th annual meeting.  

The meeting will provide many outstanding symposia and sessions; the full program is summarized on our annual meeting website.  We will again partner with the NINDS to sponsor the Career Development Symposium for junior faculty who are recent (or future) recipients of NINDS career development awards.  We will also offer our own Faculty Development Symposium.  We are particularly pleased to partner this year with JAMA Neurology to offer a new event – a symposium entitled, “Circuits and Circuit Disorders: Approaches to Neuromodulation”, led by Dr. Mahlon R. DeLong, recipient of the 2014 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.  This will be held on the evening prior to the start of the full ANA meeting (Saturday, September 26).

Please note that our Works-in-Progress abstract site is open; we look forward to receiving your submissions. This feature of the ANA annual meeting provides an excellent opportunity for any member to share new and innovative findings with the entire academic neurology community. If your research has exciting late breaking results, consider submitting a Works-in-Progress abstract by July 1.

Also, the Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award, which was established to recognize outstanding accomplishments in teaching neurology students, is now open for nominations through July 24. This award is intended to recognize and reward contributions by gifted and talented teachers in neurology. Each Neurology Department in the U.S. and Canada is encouraged to nominate one individual from the entire field of neurology each year.  A list of past recipients may be found here: http://myana.org/distinguished-neurology-teacher-award.

Our newest addition to ANA programming is a series of live and recorded webinars. These sessions, which are available for CME credit, are designed to help participants gain insight into the latest research and to help traverse through the ever changing landscape of academic neurology. I will present the first webinar on the topic: “ALS: Update on Genetics and Treatments” on June 26 at 2pm ET. 

I encourage you to visit our annual meeting website and very much look forward seeing you at the meeting.

Sincerely,

Robert H. Brown, Jr., D.Phil., M.D.
University of Massachusetts Medical School

President, American Neurological Association