ESE Election Reminder

We would like to remind members that the closing date for nominations is Friday 22 January 2010.

In accordance with the ESE byelaws we would like to invite members to nominate candidates for the Executive Committee. There are 2 Executive Committee posts available in 2010 and each Voting Member may make one nomination for each Executive Committee vacancy. The Executive Committee may also make up to two nominations for each Executive Committee vacancy.

Please note that all nominations will be reviewed by the ESE Nominations Sub-committee who, taking into account the balance of the Executive Committee in terms of geographical location, subject speciality, basic or clinical focus and gender, will propose a final list of candidates to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee will make the final decision on the list of selected candidates to be put forward to the members for election.

In addition to the Executive Committee nominations, and in accordance with the ESE byelaws, we would also like to invite members to nominate two Honorary Auditors to audit the 2010 accounts. The role of the auditors will be to review the annual accounts before they are presented at the Annual General Meeting for approval, and to submit their comments to the Annual General Meeting in 2011.

Further information, FORM A ‘Nomination for Ordinary Executive Committee Member’ and FORM B ‘Nomination for Honorary Auditor’ can be found here:

Further information

Form A

Form B

Nominations for the Executive Committee Member and the Honorary Auditors must be received no later than Friday 22 January 2010. If you have any questions please contact the ESE Secretariat at info@euro-endo.org.

Notice of the next ESE Annual General Meeting

Notice is hereby given that the 2010 Annual General Meeting of the European Society of Endocrinology will be held at 18.30 on Tuesday 27 April 2010 in the Panorama room, Prague Congress Centre, 5. Kvetna 65, 140 21 Prague 4, Czech Republic.

The agenda and appendices will be circulated by email to members at least one month prior to the afore-mentioned date. The documents will also be placed in the members section of the ESE website.

As ESE communicates with members by email, please ensure that you notify the ESE Secretariat (info@euro-endo.org) if your email address changes.

To the ESE website

ESE Membership renewal information

We would like to remind members, if they have not already renewed their membership for 2010, they can do so via the ESE website. The annual membership fee for 2010 is Euro 70 for Full members and Euro 35 for Reduced Rate members. ALL members will receive free on-line access to the European Journal of Endocrinology.

Members are able to pay for a 3 year membership at the discounted rate of Euro 190 or Euro 95 for reduced rate country, retired or under 35 years of age OR a Lifetime membership at Euro 1120 or Euro 560 for reduced rate country, retired or under 35 years of age.

Full details including how to pay are detailed in your renewal notice and we ask that you arrange payment by 31 January 2010.

ESE membership

BioSciAlliance - create your profile today and be part of the endocrine community!

BioSciAlliance is an exciting service from BioScientifica that allows members to access a host of services using a single gateway. BioSciAlliance - www.bioscialliance.org - allows you to renew your membership; access abstract management and registration for ESE meetings; update your membership profile and interact with fellow members, all using a single website.

Furthermore, ESE members get free access to the European Journal of Endocrinology via this route.

ESE members can logon to BioSciAlliance using their current membership number and password. Once you are logged on, you can build up your own profile and search for fellow members by geographical location or areas of interest. In addition, BioSciAlliance provides a wealth of educational resources, BioScientifica's world calendar of events and news articles on a range of biomedical specialities.

Communicate; Collaborate; Innovate - logon to BioSciAlliance today.

Logon to BioSciAlliance

ESE new member applications - deadline 1 February 2010

All new membership applications received will be approved at the next ESE Executive Committee meeting, to be held on 8 February 2010. If you know a colleague who would like to apply for membership then please ask them to do so before 1 February 2010 so that their application can be approved at this meeting.

Membership applications received after this date will be approved at the next Executive Committee meeting to be held during ECE 2010 in Prague (24-28 April 2010).

Remember that all ESE members receive a reduced registration rate to ECE 2010.

ECE 2010 - ESE members can save Euro 250 on registration rates!

ECE 2010 will take place in Prague on 24-28 April 2010. The POC have composed a high quality scientific programme covering basic science as well as clinical research and practice and have invited outstanding speakers for the plenary lectures.

Early bird registration rates will be available until 12 March 2010.

As a paid ESE member you can save Euro 250 on the registration fee. Economic packages and ten Journal of Endocrinology travel grants are also available. More information can be found at www.ece2010.com.

ECE 2010 - Abstracts

We are pleased to announce that 920 abstracts were received and all presenting authors will be contacted by the end of February 2010.

ECE 2010

ECE 2010 - early bird registration deadline 12 March

The 12th European Congress of Endocrinology will be taking place on 24 - 28 April 2010 in Prague, Czech Republic. This hugely popular annual event attracts endocrinologists from across Europe to learn from the the latest advances in endocrine research and clinical care presented by invited speakers and scientific symposia, as well as dedicated 'Meet the Expert' and poster sessions.

Registering before the early bird deadline of 12 March will entitle you to a significant discount, so follow the link below where you can find registration details, as well as a wealth of information on the congress including a programme and an application form for travel grants.

ECE 2010

ECE 2010 - Journal of Endocrinology travel grant

The Journal of Endocrinology offers travel grants of €300 each to ten young scientists attending the European Congress of Endocrinology.

Applicants must be a current member of ESE, under 35 years of age and be resident in a country that is not classified by the World Bank as a high income country. The travel grants are available for attendance at the annual congress if the applicant has submitted an abstract.

The full eligibility criteria can be found on the ESE website here.

ECE 2010 - Economic Packages

Economic packages are available to ECE 2010 delegates who fulfil the following criteria:

• Their country of residence has a GDP-per-capita of below $15,000 as defined by the CIA World Fact book. For further details please visit the following website: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/in

• They are non-clinically qualified research students or postdoctoral fellows, nurses who have no access to funding or are retired.

Registration does not include tickets to the social events or optional excursions.

The economic package includes access to all congress sessions and commercial exhibition, delegate bag including all congress materials and a name badge, Endocrine Abstracts (either on CD or in print), entrance to the Opening Ceremony and Welcome Reception, refreshment breaks during the congress and bed & breakfast accommodation for 4 nights in a 3* hotel (for a limited number of participants and not available on-site).

Further information and application details can be found at www.ece2010.com

Please note that the deadline for applications is 12 March 2010.

ESE Postgraduate Training Courses

The 9th Postgraduate Training Course will be held in Tartu, Estonia from 27-29 May 2010 and the new style 1st ESE Clinical Update course will be held in Porto, Portugal from 22–24 October 2010.

Keep an eye on the ESE website for more details including the preliminary programme and registration details.

ESE website

Endocrine-Related Cancer - continuous publication online

Endocrine-Related Cancer, the established global forum for basic, translational and clinical research on hormones and cancer has launched continuous publication on-line. NEW ARTICLES are published on-line as soon as they are ready for publication, without waiting for an issue to be compiled. Look out for these NEW ARTICLES throughout January at www.try-erc.org.

NEW ARTICLES published by ERC can now be read and cited faster than ever before, a superb new development for authors and readers sharing knowledge worldwide.

Authors accepted manuscripts (Accepted Preprints) continue to appear within 24 hours of acceptance.

ERC is the most widely read journal devoted to hormones and cancer with an impact factor of 5.236 and a 5-year impact factor of 5.827.

ERC is an official journal of the European Society of Endocrinology.

Find out more about ERC at www.try-erc.org

The 14th International Congress of Endocrinology - pre-registration deadline 15 February

The 14th International Congress of Endocrinology (ICE2010 Kyoto, 26-30 March 2010) is now just over two months away.

The deadline for Pre-registration is 15 February 2010. Please register on-line at www.congre.co.jp/ice2010/. The deadline is fast-approaching and so to avoid difficulties in last minute registration, please register now.

An impressive program has been created consisting of 11 plenary lectures, panel discussion, 31 Meet-the-Professor sessions and 115 symposia sessions. Nobel-Prize winner, Prof. Ferid Murad, and two Lasker-Award winners, Prof. Robert G. Roeder and Prof. Shinya Yamanaka, will give the plenary lectures.

Diabetes gene points way to new treatments (The Times Online, 18 January 2010)

Scientists from research centres across the world have pooled data to contribute to the largest association study published to date, and have found nine new genes that influence blood-sugar levels and can be linked to type 2 diabetes.

Full article

Rising obesity prompts higher antibiotic doses call (BBC News Online, 15 January 2010)

Doctors from the US and Greece have suggested that the dosage of antibiotics prescribed should be adjusted to each individual case, arguing that standard doses may not give sufficient drug distribution to combat bacterial infections in the rising number of obese patients.

Full article

Low growth hormone levels linked to memory defects later in life can be prevented with early growth hormone treatment (AlphaGalileo, 13 January 2010)

Scientists have shown that early growth hormone supplementation in rats with growth hormone deficiency can prevent defects in memory developing later in adulthood. The study, published in the Journal of Endocrinology is the first to show that memory defects in adults as a result of growth hormone deficiency arising in childhood can be prevented by growth hormone treatment during adolescence.

Full article

Hormones 'govern ability to breastfeed' (BBC News Online, 7 January 2010)

Norwegian scientists have suggested that high testosterone levels during pregnancy may be the reason that some mothers find breastfeeding difficult.

Full article

Low hormone levels in pregnancy linked to hard birth (BBC News Online, 23 December 2009)

Research conducted by a team of Dutch scientists and published in Clinical Endocrinology has described an association between thyroid hormone levels in expectant mothers and the way in which the foetus is presented at birth.

Full Article

First analysis of a large cohort of thyroid hemiagenesis patients

Thyroid hemiagenesis (THA) is a rare anomaly present at birth in which one of the thyroid lobes fails to develop. It is usually detected during investigation of other thyroid pathologies, and as imaging techniques improve, more cases of THA are being identified. The literature currently comprises of mainly individual case studies, and there is no consensus on the clinical significance or how THA patients should be managed.

Ruchala et al. have conducted the first systematic analysis of patients with THA using a large cohort comprising 40 subjects with THA who were compared to 80 control subjects with a fully developed thyroid gland. Serum concentrations of thyroid hormones were measured and thyroid ultrasonography and fine-needle aspiration biopsy were performed where possible. Patients with THA were found to have significantly higher concentrations of thyrotropin and free triiodothyronine than controls. A higher incidence of associated functional, morphological and autoimmune thyroid disorders was also observed, and presumed to be due to long-term thyrotropin overstimulation.

This study of THA is the largest conducted to date, and has enabled the authors to conclude that patients diagnosed with thyroid hemiagenesis should be systematically observed and levothyroxine treatment should be provided to those with elevated thyrotropin. Ruchala et al., European Journal of Endocrinology.

DOI 10.1530/EJE-09-0590

Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine 2011

The Louis-Jeantet Foundation offers one or more prestigious prizes each year to researchers who distinguish themselves in the field of biomedical research in Europe. Of the CHF 700,000 prize money a significant proportion is designated as financing for the recipient's ongoing research, distinguishing the prize as a recognition of excellence rather than a reward for a completed body of work.

Nominations for the prize will be accepted until 15 February 2010. Follow the link below for more information and to nominate a candidate.

Fondation Louis-Jeantet

EMBO Long Term Fellowships

The European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) Long-Term Fellowships are awarded for a period of up to two years and support post-doctoral research visits to laboratories throughout Europe and the world. International exchange is a key feature in the application process. All fellowships must involve movement between countries and one of those countries must be an EMBC Member State. Only candidates who have had a career break for at least one year for child-care reasons will be given special consideration when applying to stay within the same country. Full details are available at the link below. The next closing date for applications is 15 February 2010.

EMBO website

European Research Council Advanced Grant for Life Sciences

The European Research Council (ERC) awards a number of grants annually to exceptional investigators in all fields of research. They are currently calling for applications for their Advanced Grant for Life Sciences. ERC grants support projects which are carried out by individual research teams headed by a single Principal Investigator of any nationality and, if necessary, include additional team members. Applicants for the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant are expected to have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years which must be presented in the application.

The grants are designed as part of the 'FP7' initiative for European collaboration in all areas of research, and applicants can apply for up to Euro 3.5 million for a period of 5 years. The deadline for this round of applications is 17 March 2010.

ERC grants page

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