2021 Central Nervous System Injury and Repair Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar

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The goal of this new Gordon Research Conference (GRC) series, entitled “Central Nervous System Injury and Repair”, together with its accompanying Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), is to provide a forum for the exchange of the most exciting and cutting edge scientific data and novel ideas in the rapidly advancing fields of injury, regeneration, and repair of the central nervous system, with particular emphasis on spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injury is a major medical challenge since it leaves millions of people worldwide paralyzed and with loss of sensation, cardiorespiratory, bladder and sexual dysfunction as well as pain for their lifetime. Despite many years of efforts, an effective treatment or cure is still lacking. This is in part due to the complexity of this disorder where in addition to the damage of axons, spinal cord injury leads to profound changes of the cellular and molecular environment, involving neurons, glia, immune cells, etc. An emerging consensus is that combinatorial approaches targeting multiple cellular and molecular aspects of the injury response will be necessary to treat spinal cord injury and induce functional recovery. As spinal cord is an essential part of the central nervous system and spinal cord injury is a challenging disorder, we think a current focus on the spinal cord will help facilitate communications and advance the cutting-edge science. Because many issues of the central nervous system are shared between the spinal cord and the brain, the current focus on spinal cord injury will benefit the research of central nervous system injury and repair in general. The 2021 Central Nervous System Injury and Repair GRC will feature the most exciting work on the molecular, cellular, and systems-level changes that affect the injured spinal cord and neural repair. There will be 9 sessions of oral presentations ranging in topics from basic science to clinical translation. Each presentation will be accompanied by ample time to query results and discuss the implications for the larger health community, including patients, healthcare professionals, and policy-makers. This interactive forum can collectively accelerate discovery and translation of treatments that will lead to functional recovery. We further aim to have attendance, including oral and poster presenters, from basic and physician scientists and from industry, as well as a breath of diversity across gender, geographical locations and age groups to enable a broad communication of the scientific content. We will be aggressively sensitive to the goal of diversifying attendance by disseminating conference information to organizations and institutions with under-represented individuals. Perhaps one of the most exciting developments will be the introduction of a GRS that accompanies the GRC, which will be essential for the future success of the field. The GRS is a symposium held immediately preceding the GRC that provides a platform for young scientists to discuss their research and respond to real-time queries from other young scientists. The goal of the GRS is two-fold: to fuel scientific communication amongst peers and to provide career mentoring for young scientists by their more senior colleagues.