Welcome to our exciting SLTBR Virtual Meeting!
It’s my pleasure to be the moderator of this innovative scientific communication
project. The Virtual Meeting is the first of its kind, and may be a model for other
scientific societies to use. Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make this happen,
especially Michael Terman, Namni Goel, Anthony Levitt, Robert Rahl, and Kathy
Matikonis.
The unfortunate spread of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) to Toronto last
spring forced the cancellation of SLTBR’s 15th annual meeting, which was to be its
second after adoption of Chronobiology International as its official journal in 2002.
However, the abstracts were felt to be important enough to publish even without a
meeting. All 40 peer-reviewed abstracts, prefaced by an integrative overview by
Robert D. Levitan and Anthony J. Levitt, will be published in Chronobiology
International.
However, for a true meeting we need scholarly interaction above-and-beyond peer
review. In the spirit of "making pie when life deals you lemons", and in
collaboration with the Journal, the Society devised this Virtual Meeting to include
abstract presentation, review and member discussion. So, here is how Virtual Meeting
2003 will work:
1. At regular intervals, we will send an email post to SLTBR-L members that includes
one section of the meeting (see below), with an attached pdf file of 6-10 abstracts,
and the part of the integrative overview relating to that section.
2. We encourage you to read the abstracts and overview, and then email comments and
questions to
sltbr-vm2003@yahoogroups.com. We’ll then post a summary of these comments
and author-replies back to the list. The discussion will continue for at least a
couple of weeks (or longer if there is vigorous discussion!), before we move on to
the next section. We will ask you NOT to post individual comments to the SLTBR-L
list, so as not to overload members with email.
3. All abstracts, the full integrative overview, and summary of discussions will
be posted at the Virtual Meeting page, a members’ only section of the SLTBR web
site, at www.sltbr.org./vm/index.htm
4. The 5 sections are:
1) Epidemiology and Phenomenology (6 abstracts),
2) Circadian Rhythms and Sleep (11 abstracts),
3) Melatonin (8 abstracts),
4) Biology of Seasonal Affective Disorder (8 abstracts), and
5) Treatment Studies (8 abstracts).
Regards, Ray.
****************************************
Raymond W. Lam, MD, FRCPC
Professor and Head,
Division of Clinical Neuroscience
Department of Psychiatry, University of BC
2255 Wesbrook Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 2A1
Tel: 604-822-7325,
Fax: 604-822-7922
r.lam@ubc.ca www.UBCmood.ca
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Virtual Meeting 2003