| MESSAGE
FROM THE PRESIDENT
 Since
I last wrote you, I have been keeping our Board
of Directors and Board of Advisors very busy here
in Palm Beach. I have been working with each of
these bodies to be sure that CFXF has their support
in all areas so that we can move ahead with our
new grant programs, naming opportunities and continued
growth.
We have launched a series
of three new grant programs, while renewing our
principal investigator program. Each new offering
is designed to address a specific need within
the International Fragile X Community. Our goal
is to continue to foster and encourage collaborations
among researchers worldwide, and a new objective
is to create opportunities for new researchers
to join the fragile X research community, and
encourage projects in labs that currently have
no fragile X work on going. These new elements
of our funding choices have been implemented in
response to the input our Scientific Advisory
Board has provided us over the past months. We
look forward to a very exciting series of applications.
On February 11, 2004 CFXF
held a very special luncheon meeting in Palm Beach
to roll out our new grant program and to introduce
CFXF naming opportunities for the first time.
Read about CFXF's very first named research award,
the Kagan Charitable Trust Fragile X Short-Term
Fellowship, named by the Elliott Harris family
in honor of his grandson, Joshua Gammon, son of
CFXF Advisory Board member Marti Gammon and her
husband Tom. We look forward to working with the
Harris and Gammon families in the coming year
to ensure that this short-term fellowship is awarded
to a talented researcher.
A sincere thank you to all
those who joined us in Palm Beach on February
11, and to all of you who lend us your support
from many places all over the world. Each and
every donation we receive is very much appreciated.
I hope that you will read more about our new naming
opportunities in this newsletter and consider
one of these options as a way to provide CFXF
with your on-going support. Thank you again to
each of you. |
CFXF
GAINS TWO NEW NAMED GRANT OPPORTUNITIES –
LAURA ANTAR RECEIVES RICHARD AND ROSALEE DAVISON
CONFERENCE TRAVEL AWARD
 CFXF
is all about stirring things up in the world of
fragile X research! Our goal is to bring international
expertise to bear on a cure. And, we’ll
do just that with our new grant opportunities.
The Kagan Charitable Trust Short-Term Fellowship,
a gift from the Elliott Harris family in honor
of grandson, Joshua Gammon, will send a fragile
X researcher to visit and learn from a fragile
X project in a different part of the world. Our
Richard and Rosalee Davison Conference Travel
Award will send scientists to important conferences
all around the world to learn and share their
knowledge.
Our first recipient of the Richard and Rosalee
Davison Conference Travel Fund is Laura Antar,
a Ph.D. candidate and MD student at the Rose Kennedy
Center of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Laura will use her award to travel to and participate
in the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Biology
Of The Neuron, June 20-25, 2004 at Colby-Sawyer
College in New London, NH. The Conference features
a significant fragile X section and includes several
noted fragile X researchers such as William Greenough
of the University of Illinois who will speak on,
“Overview: Molecular and Cell Biology of
Fragile X Syndrome”, Claudia Bagni, of the
University of Rome, who will discuss, “mRNA
Translation at Synapses: a Common Role for the
Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein and the non
coding RNA BC1”, and Gary Bassell of the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, speaking
on “RNA Binding Proteins in Synaptic Development,
Plasticity and Fragile X”.
Congratulations to Laura and thank you so much
to Mr. Harris and the Davisons for taking the
lead in this effort. We look forward to announcing
our Kagan Charitable Trust Short-Term Fellowship
recipient soon. |
On February
11, 2004, CFXF held its annual Board Meeting and
Luncheon at the Tower Restaurant in Palm Beach.
We were fortunate to have many of our families,
supporters and researchers attend. CFXF Scientific
Advisor Dr. Karen Usdin joined us, as did Dr.
Jerry Yin of the University of Wisconsin at Madison
and Dr. Gary Bassell of the Kennedy Center at
Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Usdin
and Dr. Yin addressed the group, and explained
the on-going research in their labs and some of
the advances the field has seen in the recent
past.
Over 45 CFXF donors, supporters and Board Members
attended the luncheon and learned about our newest
initiatives. It was a great opportunity for everyone
to get together over a wonderful lunch, learn
about fragile X and meet some leading fragile
X researchers.
|
CFXF HOLDS ANNUAL BOARD MEETING AND LUNCHEON
