News

39th SouthEastern Regional Lipid Research Conference
High Hampton Inn, Cashiers NC, 3-5 November 2004

The conference was chaired by Maraiana Nikolova-Karashikan, Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky. This meeting is broadly focused on the biology of cell membranes and their lipid constituents and attracts attendees from as far North as Washington DC and as far south as Florida with particularly strong representation from North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.

Keynote presentations were given by Tim Hla from the University of Connecticut who spoke a about Vascular Signaling actions of Sphingosine 1-phosphate and Alex Brown from Vanderbilt University who spoke about the analysis of complex lipid mixtures by multiplex mass spectrometry. Aside from these two talks a unique feature of this meeting is that all other research presentations- including almost 40 research talks and a similar number of research posters - were made by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

A committee of past chairs of the meeting selected recipients of two Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Awards. The awardees were Preeti Subramanian from the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University and Eric Lewis from the Department of Biochemistry at Wake Forest University.

Ms. Subramanian is a graduate student working under the direction of Dr Charles Chalfant and she spoke about the recent identification of ceramide 1 phosphate as an activator of cytosolic phospholipase A2.

Mr. Lewis discussed his research on the binding of phosphatidic acid to a component of the neutrophil NADPH oxidase complex conducted with Dr Linda McPhail.

Both awardees received a framed certificate, assorted Biochemical Journal gifts and a cash award of $250. Dr Sharon Schendel, Administrative Editor, Biochemical Journal US office, presented the awards.