The ninth annual meeting of the Society for Acupuncture Research will be held Friday and Saturday, October 18-19 in Seattle, Washington, and will be co-hosted by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine. The annual meeting is the focal point of the Society's activity in continuing its mission to improve the quality and increase awareness of research in acupuncture, herbal therapy and other modalities of Oriental medicine.
Three major presentations will highlight this fall's conference. Keynote speaker Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California, will address a fundamental but long-ignored area of research. Her talk, "Practitioner and Experimenter Intention: Implications for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Research," will incorporate much of her own leading-edge research on the role of intention in subtle energy phenomena.
Raimond Wong, MD, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, will speak on a topic currently generating considerable interest, "Integration of Chinese Medicine into Supportive Cancer Care: A Research-Based Assessment." Dr. Wong is the lead author of a recent review on Chinese medicine as adjunctive care for cancer, and is currently involved in a study of acupoint stimulation for treating radiation-induced xerostomia. A special session of submitted oral presentations of ongoing research on acupuncture and Oriental medicine for cancer care will follow his talk.
Richard L Nahin, PhD, director of extramural research, training and review at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), National Institutes of Health, will present a talk of broad interest to the acupuncture research community, "A History of NIH Funding of Acupuncture Research." Dr. Nahin has long been a CAM "insider" at NIH, serving at the Office of Alternative Medicine before its 1998 upgrade to NCCAM. He is also knowledgeable about future trends in CAM funding by the NIH.
As in past years, the SAR conference will also feature oral and poster presentations of research projects that are recently completed, ongoing or in the planning stage. Abstracts are currently being invited, with a submission deadline of August 1. Abstract forms, hotel information and updates on the conference are posted on the Society's website: www.acupunctureresearch.org. Information on submitting abstracts can also be obtained from the program chair, Richard Hammerschlag, at rhammerschlag@ocom.edu.
Although you do not have to join the Society to attend the conference, anyone interested in research in acupuncture and Oriental medicine is also invited to visit our website for information on the benefits of and procedure for joining SAR. Special student rates are offered for the conference registration fee and for joining SAR.
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