Busy, busy times!

I have to begin this blog post by apologizing for the lack in posting these past few weeks. It has been a busy time around the offices of the Registry as well as the Clinical Research Society. Here's a snapshot of some of the most recent things that have been keeping us occupied and out of trouble!

• We have completed the Research Center's annual newsletter! For those people enrolled in the research study, you should be seeing it in your mailbox in the near future.

• We just learned that our paper on autism and 18q- has been accepted for publication! This paper identifies several new candidate genes that may contribute to autism. We've gone through several rounds of revisions on this one, and we're excited to see it in print in the near future!

• Many of you may know Bridgette Soileau. She used to work as the patient coordinator before she became a Research Area Specialist - Associate. Her area of specialty: Neuropsychology! Well, this past week-end, Bridgette graduated with her MA in School Psychology from Trinity University! Here's a photo of the happy grad with two of her work colleagues, Patty and Mimi!

• I've been prepping to present our data on the clinical features of 18p- at the European Society of Human Genetics

• Dr. Cody just came from the Society for Pediatric Research meetings in Vancouver.

• It has also been a busy time for the Registry office! The annual Golf Tournament is coming up on May 22nd. Also, the preparations for the 2010 Annual Conference are underway!

And those are just the things that came to me from the top of my head! As always, we have been bringing people down to San Antonio; making calls to collect more data; running experiments; interpreting results; enrolling new families; writing abstracts and manuscripts; coming up with ideas for new research directions; and looking for funding. As the title of this post says, it has been busy within the walls of the Research Center as of late!