PROGRAM

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Program Information
Keynote Speakers
Accommodation
Travel Authorisation
Travel Grants

Program Information

The Organising Committee has planned a Congress that will have world-renowned plenary speakers, 78 symposia and 8 breakfast discussion sessions. There will be over 200 posters presentations on the range of topics also. Symposium and Poster Session details are listed in the program timetable.

It is anticipated that a pre-Congress satellite conference will be held on Hamilton Island in Queensland in association with the Addiction Neuroscience Network of Australia.

On Thursday 14^th September a workshop on alcohol treatment programs in Australia will be organised for Japanese delegates. This will include visits to a hospital unit, a community care clinic and a self-support group in the morning. In the afternoon delegates will be given a tour of the beautiful Blue Mountains area. A Japanese colleague, experienced in the field of alcohol treatment, and a professional interpreter will accompany participants.

To complement the scientific meeting, we hope that you will enjoy the social program in the company of your scientific colleagues. Within the main program and the satellite meetings, you will have the opportunity to see Sydney, the Harbour City and home of the 2000 Olympics, the spectacular Blue Mountains and the Great Barrier Reef. You may wish to take a few days to see more of Australia.

Keynote Speakers

Ting-Kai Li, USA

Sarah Dunlop, Australia

T Yoshikawa, Japan

Marc Schuckit, USA

Ian Kitchen, UK

Ting-Kai Li, USA

Is there a future for quantifying drinking in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of alcohol use disorders?
Ting-Kai Li, USA
Dr Ting-Kai Li was appointed to the position of the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in November 2002. Born in Nanjing, China, Dr Li earned his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and his M.D. from Harvard University. He completed his residency training at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, where he was named chief medical resident in 1965.

Dr Li received his research training at Harvard University Medical School and conducted research at the Nobel Medical Research and Karolinska Institutes in Stockholm, Sweden before becoming deputy director of the department of biochemistry at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He joined the faculty at Indiana University as professor of medicine and biochemistry in 1971. He subsequently was named the school's John B. Hickam Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and, later, Distinguished Professor of Medicine. In 1985 he became director of the Indiana Alcohol Research Center (IARC) at the Indiana University School of Medicine, where he also was the Associate Dean for Research. Dr Li is also the recipient of Honorary D.Sc. degrees awarded by Northeast Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine (1998) and by Indiana University and Purdue University (2003).

Throughout his distinguished research career, Dr Li has been at the center of advances that have transformed both the way alcoholism is understood and the means of investigating alcohol's effects on the body and brain. A major focus of Dr Li's research has been to characterize the structure and functional characteristics of the multiple genetic variants of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), the enzyme that catalyzes the first step in the metabolism of ethanol, and the differences among individuals in the physiology of these enzymes. Dr Li also pioneered the development of animal models in which marked differences in the level of voluntary alcohol consumption could be observed, paralleling the same inborn variation seen in human behavior. The development of these animal lines helped cement the once radical notion that alcohol consumption behavior was genetically influenced.

Dr Li is the author of more than 400 journal articles and book chapters, has been invited to deliver many major lectureships in countries all over the world, and is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards for his scientific accomplishments, including the Jellinek Award, the James B. Isaacson Award for Research in Chemical Dependency Diseases and the R. Brinkley Smithers Distinguished Science Award. Dr Li has also served in many prominent leadership and advisory positions including past President of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA), and as a member of the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH. Dr Li was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and is an honorary fellow of the United Kingdom's Society for the Study of Addiction.

Sarah Dunlop, Australia

Neural injury and brain training: driving plasticity on the road to recovery.
Sarah Dunlop, Australia
Sarah Dunlop received her PhD in Zoology from the University of London and moved to The University of Western Australia where she launched her career in neuroscience. She is a Senior Research Fellow of National Health & Medical Research Council, having been appointed in 1990, and is also a Professorial Fellow of The University of Western Australia. She has published widely on development and regeneration of the visual system adopting a comparative approach to examine factors underpinning the establishment of neuronal circuitry early in life and the potential for repair after neurotrauma, drug-induced damage and disease. Her laboratory adopts a multidisciplinary approach using behavioural, electrophysiological, anatomical and molecular techniques to assess the progression of developmental events and functional recovery after injury. Current basic research programs with translational aspects for clinical application include examining neovascularisation in transgenic models of diabetic retinopathy and aged macular degeneration, monitoring the effects of maternally administered treatments for heroin addiction on the developing brain and examining the effects of training on functional recovery after central and peripheral nerve injury. She is President of the UWA Researchers' Association, member of a number of Boards and is actively involved in national and international peer review.

T Yoshikawa, Japan

How can we correlate phenotypic traits with genotypes in complex diseases?
T Yoshikawa, Japan
1984: Graduated from Osaka University School of Medicine, Japan (M.D.).
1991: Awarded the degree of PhD from Section of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Japan. Thesis on animal model of amphetamine psychosis.
1993-1997: Visiting Fellow and Associate, Clinical Neurogenetics Branch (Drs Elliot Gershon and Sevilla Detera-Wadleigh), NIMH, NIH, USA; engaged in genetics of bipolar disorder.
1999-Present: Laboratory Head, Lab. for Molecular Psychiatry, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan; the main theme is molecular genetic analysis of schizophrenia and mood disorders.

Marc Schuckit, USA

The importance of evaluating both genes and environment in the predisposition toward alcoholism.
Marc Schuckit, USA
Dr Marc Schuckit is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and serves as the Director of the Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program and of the Alcohol Research Center at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. He is Editor of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol, and has been a member of the editorial boards of many major alcohol and drug journals in the United States and Europe. In addition, he is Director of the Alcohol Medical Scholars Program with the goal of encouraging junior faculty in medical schools to improve their teaching and develop careers in substance use disorders.

Dr Schuckit's major areas of research have focused on evaluating the importance of genetic influences in alcoholism, and then searching for the biological factors that might interact with the environment to produce a vulnerability toward severe alcohol problems. Other research efforts include a search for the optimal diagnostic criteria for substance abuse or dependence, which lead to his appointment as a member of the Task Force and Chair of the Substance Use Disorders Committee for DSM-IV and his role in the preparations for DSM-V. His third focus has been on the relationship between alcoholism and drug use disorders and psychiatric syndromes, especially depression, states of anxiety, or psychoses. From these efforts he has published over 500 papers and has written over 10 books, including the recent sixth edition of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

He has been fortunate to be recognized for a number of awards in the alcoholism field including the Middleton Award for the best research within the VA system, the American Psychiatric Association's Hoffheimer Award for Research in Psychiatry, the Gold Medal Award for lifetime achievement from the Society of Biological Psychiatry, and the Distinguished Scientist Award as well as the Seixas Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism.

Ian Kitchen, UK

Gene knockouts and the neuroscience of addiction.
Ian Kitchen, UK
Ian Kitchen is Professor of Neuropharmacology and Head of the Pharmacology group in the School of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at the University of Surrey in the UK. He has published over 200 papers predominantly in the opioid field, and is internationally recognised for his work on the development of opioid systems, and most recently for neuropharmacological and neuroanatomical studies in opioid receptor, opioid peptide and adenosine receptor knockout mice. He is currently co-ordinating an 8.1 million European grant on the genetics of addiction. He has been an editor of the British Journal of Pharmacology, served on research council panels and is on the MRC Neurosciences and Mental Health Board college of experts. He is a panel member for the forthcoming 2008 research assessment exercise in UK universities. He is the founding Chairman of the European Opioid Conference and a member of the IUPHAR opioid receptor nomenclature committee.

Accommodation

Please contact your preferred accommodation property directly to make any amendments to your existing booking, or to make any new bookings.

Budget Accommodation
If you wish to stay in budget accommodation, please go to the HOSTELS IN SYDNEY. All accommodation at these properties need to be arranged by yourself and no responsibility will be taken by the ISBRA Congress, the Congress Office, ICMS Pty Ltd, nor any of their employees and committee members.

Travel Authorisation

We have recently learned that travel authorization is required for Australia for most of the participants. One of the best sites to refer to is: http://www.eta.immi.gov.au/index.html

You are only eligible to apply for an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) while you are outside of Australia. The cost is A$20. To apply through this site, you must also hold one of the ETA-eligible passports listed below. If you do not meet these criteria, then you should contact your nearest Australian visa office for further options.

Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong SAR Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway Portugal
San Marino
Singapore
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States Of America
Vatican City

Holders of UK British National (Overseas) (GBN) passports are not eligible to apply for ETAs through this site.

Please note that the ISBRA 2006 Congress, the Congress office and all employees and committee members are unable to take any responsibility for any visa/travel documents for delegates.

Travel Grants

We are very pleased to have so many interested in participating in the ISBRA 2006 Congress in Sydney, Australia, September 10-13, 2006. We have received many inquiries regarding possible travel support. There are a number of opportunities as outlined below.

North America
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a Conference Grant to support travel to ISBRA 2006. Dr. Edward Riley is the Principal Investigator of this grant.

Travel awards through the NIAAA grant are available for US invited speakers, US young/new investigators and US minority groups. Those interested in applying should send their relevant personal information and the title of their submitted abstract(s) to the ISBRA Secretariat, and copy to the Congress organizers. Please indicate if the abstracts form part of a symposium or workshop, and if so, give the title of the symposium/workshop and the name of the chairperson. ISBRA Members are given priority for these grants.

Asia
The Japanese Medical Society on Alcohol and Drug Studies (JMSAS) will be providing travel awards to the ISBRA 2006 Congress. Applicants must be Japanese citizens or be living in an Asian country, and who are invited speakers at either a symposium or workshop. Dr. Toshikazu Saito is the coordinator of these awards.

Applicants may apply to Dr. Saito after he/she has been accepted as an invited speaker. Dr. Saito's contact information is:

Toshikazu Saito MD, PhD
Professor and Chairman
Department of Neuropsychiatry
Sapporo Medical University
School of Medicine
S-1, W-16, Chuo-ku, Sapporo 060-8543, Japan
Email: tosaito@sapmed.ac.jp

Travel awards for investigators in the Asia-Pacific Region are also available through the through the NIAAA grant described above. The number of awards is limited. Those interested in applying should send their relevant personal information and the title of their submitted abstract(s) to the ISBRA Secretariat and copy to the Congress organizers. Please indicate if the abstracts form part of a symposium or workshop, and if so, give the title of the symposium/workshop and the name of the chairperson. ISBRA Members are given priority for these grants.

Europe
The Board of Directors of European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA) will provide travel grants to young scientists from Europe who have had abstracts accepted for the Congress. Further information can be obtained from the Chairman of ESBRA - Prof. Helmut Seitz.

Worldwide
The Australian Organising Committee of the ISBRA Congress is now in a position to offer a limited number of travel awards (10-15) to Congress participants who are not funded from other sources and have true financial hardship. Please contact Clive Harper with details of your accepted presentation and provide an approximate budget for your attendance. Please indicate whether or not you have already registered for the Congress.