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

2011年，PikovICNPD-1133162大会将把所有级别的国际研究人员聚集在澳大利亚悉尼，讨论最新的研究成果，并在令人兴奋的神经假体设备新领域建立新的合作。会议将于2011年11月26日至27日举行。在会议之前，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得到解决。这项提议旨在通过补贴美国初级研究人员的旅费来扩大他们参加会议的人数。智力价值会议的总主题将是将神经假体转化为临床所面临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治疗各种神经疾病的神经假体植入物，在选择生物兼容的封装材料、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，以鼓励与会者互动，寻求这些普遍存在的挑战的解决方案，而不是简单地报告实验室的进展。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。研究人员有多种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、肌肉瘫痪、帕金森？S病、癫痫和其他神经疾病的设备。这份提案中描述的会议将把成熟的研究人员和刚刚进入该领域的早期职业研究人员聚集在一起。为了在为期两天的会议期间在讨论小组中进行有重点的交流，会议前将有一系列集思广益的在线讨论。广泛的影响会议可以向NSF通报快速增长的神经假体领域的新发展。这次会议将帮助NSF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做法，并将从这一经验中吸取的经验教训应用于国家科学基金的倡议。会议参与者将被挑选出来，代表来自学术界、国家实验室、政府和工业界的广泛感兴趣的参与者。将积极招募代表其职业生涯所有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。将特别努力增加妇女和代表人数不足的少数群体在会议上的代表人数。会议计划、海报和演讲摘要将张贴在会议网站以及Frontiers会议上，后者是神经科学相关领域会议记录的主要在线储存库(www.Frontiersin.org/Conference)，作为一种实用的教育工具。此外，提交给会议的精选短论文将经过同行评议，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.