Early-Career Participants at the 3rd International Conference on NeuroProsthetic Devices, Sydney Australia, November 26-27, 2011

ICNPD-2011会议将汇集各个层次的国际研究人员到澳大利亚悉尼，以讨论最近的研究成果，并在新的和令人兴奋的神经假体装置领域建立新的合作。会议将于2011年11月26日至27日举行。在此之前，组委会将进行一系列在线讨论，最终选出该领域的几个关键创新挑战，这些挑战将在会议上讨论。该提案旨在通过补贴美国青年研究人员的旅费，扩大他们参加会议的机会。整个会议的主题将是将神经义肢转化为临床的技术和生物学挑战。世界各地有多个研究小组参与开发和测试各种神经系统疾病的神经假体植入物，在选择生物相容性封装材料，应用现代无线通信技术，更好地了解临床和用户需求等方面经常出现类似的困难。会议将举行几个讨论小组，以激发与会者在寻求这些普遍挑战的解决方案方面的互动，而不仅仅是报告实验室的进展。会议的另一个重点将是确定美国和澳大利亚科学家之间可能合作的领域，并找到启动这些合作的机制。研究人员有很多机会发起富有成效的合作项目，开发和测试用于听力和视力丧失、肌肉麻痹、帕金森症的设备。S病、癫痫和其他神经系统疾病。本提案中所描述的会议将汇集成熟的研究人员和刚刚进入该领域的早期职业研究人员。为了使讨论小组在为期两天的会议期间进行有针对性的交流，会议之前将举行一系列头脑风暴在线讨论。更广泛的影响会议可以向NSF通报快速发展的神经修复领域的新发展。美国国家科学基金会的一个具体目标是建立新的项目，强调神经技术研究和医疗器械行业的整合。会议将提供一个很好的机会，突出这一领域的最佳实践，并从这一经验中吸取教训，为国家科学基金会的倡议。会议的参与者将被选出来代表来自学术界、国家实验室、政府和工业界的广泛的感兴趣的参与者。将积极招募代表其职业生涯各个阶段的研究人员的参与者，从成熟的研究人员到刚刚开始其职业生涯的新研究人员。将作出特别努力，增加妇女和代表性不足的少数民族在会议上的代表性。会议计划、海报和演讲摘要将发布在会议网站和前沿会议上，前沿会议是神经科学相关领域会议记录的主要在线存储库（www.frontiersin.org/conferences），作为实用的教育工具。此外，提交给会议的精选短篇论文将经过同行评审，并作为开放获取期刊《神经科学前沿》的特刊发表。

1133162, PikovThe ICNPD-2011 conference will bring together international investigators of all levels to Sidney, Australia in order to discuss recent research findings and to establish new collaborations in the new and exciting field of neural prosthetic devices. The conference will take place on November 26-27, 2011. It will be preceded by a series of online discussions by the organizing committee, resulting in the selection of several key innovation challenges in the field that will be addressed at the conference. This proposal aims to expand the participation of junior US researchers at the conference by subsidizing their travel costs. Intellectual MeritThe overall conference theme will be the technological and biological challenges in translating the neural prosthetics into clinic. There are multiple research groups worldwide involved in development and testing of neuroprosthetic implants for a variety of neurological disorders and similar difficulties often arise in selecting biocompatible encapsulation materials, in applying modern wireless communication technology, in better understanding of clinical and user needs, etc. Several discussion panels will be held at the conference to stimulate the interaction of participants in seeking the solutions for these prevailing challenges, rather than simply reporting on the progress from the laboratories. An additional emphasis of the conference will be upon identifying the areas of possible collaborations between the US and Australian scientists and finding the mechanisms for jump-starting these collaborations. There are multiple opportunities for the researchers to initiate productive collaborative projects in the development and testing of devices for the hearing and vision loss, muscle paralysis, Parkinson?s disease, epilepsy, and other neurological disorders. The conference described in this proposal is one that will bring together established investigators and early-career researchers just entering this field. To enable a focused exchange at the discussion panels during the two-day meeting, there will be a series of brainstorming online discussions preceding the conference.Broader ImpactThe conference can inform the NSF about new developments in the rapidly growing neural prosthetics field. A specific goal of the NSF that will be aided by the conference is the establishment of new programs which emphasize integration of neural technology research and medical device industry. The conference will provide a good opportunity to highlight best practices in this area and to bring lessons from this experience to the NSF initiatives. The conference participants will be selected to represent a broad spectrum of interested participants from academia, national laboratories, government, and industry. Recruitment of participants representing researchers at all stages in their careers from well established to new researchers just starting their career will be actively pursued. A special effort will be made to increase the representation of women and underrepresented minorities at the conference. The conference program, poster and talk abstracts will be posted on the conference website as well as on Frontiers Conferences, a premier online depository for the conference proceedings in theneuroscience-related fields (www.frontiersin.org/conferences), to serve as a practical educational tool. In addition, the selected short papers, submitted to the conference, will be peer-reviewed and published as a special issue of the open-access journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.