IASH Meetings

2011 IASH Scientific Sessions

L. Gabriel Navar, Ph.D.

I am pleased to report that the 2011 meeting jointly sponsored with the Councils for High Blood Pressure Research and the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease was organized as a completely integrated meeting.  The Annual AHA Fall Hypertension Conference was expanded to be an “Interamerican Congress of Hypertension” with an overall theme of “Bridging Basic and Translational Hypertension Research in the Americas.”  A very attractive venue at the Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida was selected and there were ample opportunities for free communications presented as posters, oral presentations.  In addition, several workshops and symposia were organized and almost all of the sessions included participants from Latin America.  The sessions covered basic sciences and translational/clinical topics.  Almost 800 participants were at the meeting with approximately 100-150 being members of IASH.  Attendees were from the following countries:

We received endorsements from the International Society of Hypertension, Latin American Society of Hypertension, American Society of Hypertension and Consortium of Southeastern Hypertension Control and from numerous national societies relating to hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

In addition to the major effort in organizing the 2011 meeting, we successfully transferred and updated the IASH website so that it is more responsive to the needs of our members and so that information can be entered and updated in a timely manner.  Although many additions are being made, the website (www.iashonline.org) is maintained up to date and provides information on the various activities of IASH and on the 2011 meeting.  As plans for the 2011 meeting became available, the information was entered into our website.  We extend our appreciation to Jewell Jessup, Ph.D., our Executive Secretary, for all her effort in developing our new website.

As part of the 2011 meeting, the IASH presented the Lifetime Achievement award to Luis Juncos, M.D.  We also were successful in obtaining a $60,000 grant from the American Foundation for Hypertension Research which was awarded jointly to the IASH and for CHBPR to provide travel fellowships for new investigators and travel support for faculty.  Overall, financial support for the meeting was received from the following sponsors:

Actelion Pharmaceuticals, LTD

American Foundation for Hypertension Research and Education

American Society of Hypertension Carolinas, Georgia, Florida Chapter

Ajinimoto Japan

Boehringer Ingleheim Japan

Daiichi - Sankyo Japan

Pfizer Japan

Novartis Japan

Tanabe Mitsubishi

Daiichi-Sankyo provided a special grant to allow the support of a special outreach program, Managing Hypertension:  A Focus on the Cardiometabolic Syndrome held on Saturday, September 24, 2011.   

We sincerely thank all participants and sponsors for making the 2011 IASH meeting a great success and an outstanding forum for the exchange of novel ideas!!!