Sponsored by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the 33rd North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference (NACFC) was held in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this month. A number of members of the research program at the University of Iowa made the trip. This included faculty in the adult and pediatric pulmonary divisions, a pediatric endocrinologist, study nurses, pathologists, microbiologists, nurses in the Respiratory Specialty and Comprehensive Care Unit (RSCCU), pharmacists, research study coordinators, ARNPs, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, MD-PhD students, graduate students, and other laboratory personnel.
This small army of Hawkeyes represented one of the leading institutions for cystic fibrosis research in the world. The results from some of the abstract competitions at NACFC reflected that fact. Two of the five finalists in the “chalk talk” competition were part of that contingent: Pavana Rotti, a graduate student in Dr. John Engelhardt’s lab, and Keyan Zarei, Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) student and member of Dr. David Stoltz’s lab.
Attending NACFC was also an opportunity to catch up with former colleagues. Former Iowa resident and pulmonary fellow Dr. Alix Ashare, now associate professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at Dartmouth University, posed for a photo with Pulmonary Division Director Dr. Joseph Zabner. Also in attendance was former pulmonary fellow Dr. Pradeep Singh, now professor of medicine at the University of Washington, and Dr. Dan Cook, graduate of Iowa’s MSTP and former member of the Stoltz Lab, now a PSTP trainee at Vanderbilt University.