Conference Support for Genetic Alliance

描述（由申请人提供）：此拨款申请要求支持由遗传联盟赞助和协调的年度会议，为期五年。遗传联盟成立于1986年，是一个由1000个特定疾病组织组成的网络。遗传联盟的使命是通过遗传学改变健康，加速将研究成果转化为服务。今年的会议将于2009年7月17日至19日在马里兰州罗克维尔的贝塞斯达北万豪酒店举行，这是一家残疾人无障碍酒店。本次会议的主题是发现卫生系统的开放性。每次会议的总体目标是提供一个论坛，讨论研究翻译管道中的各种挑战，解决方案和机会。与会者将讨论基础研究和转化研究的最佳实践，鼓励和巩固系统联系，并审查研究人员、临床医生和疾病倡导者之间的合作方法。基因联盟举办的年度会议一直吸引着大量、多样化和充满活力的参与者——去年的年度会议有200多人参加，包括倡导者、卫生专业人员、政策制定者、研究人员、行业专业人员和社区领袖。参与者的目标群体是疾病社区。我们将这些社区定义为由倡导领袖、临床科学家和每种疾病的基础研究人员组成。会议上代表的疾病类型多种多样：心血管、心理健康、皮肤、眼睛、肝脏、肾脏、胰腺、骨骼、癌症、大脑、新陈代谢和血液。这些疾病会影响人的一生。我们的会议出席者通常有65%是女性，15%是少数族裔。这次会议和即将召开的会议的目的是为遗传学社区内高度多样化的群体之间的思想交流创造一个论坛，以加速研究和治疗的发展。遗传联盟致力于加强各个领域的合作，包括疾病和疾病途径、联邦机构和机构。我们每年都以前一年的会议为基础。我们开发的所有工具都是开源和公开的，包括来自会议的所有材料。以前的工具包括遗传联盟生物银行、疾病信息搜索、资源库和各种最佳实践。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This grant application requests support for annual conferences sponsored and coordinated by Genetic Alliance over a five-year period. Genetic Alliance, was established in 1986, and is a network of 1,000 disease specific organizations. The mission of Genetic Alliance is to transform health through genetics to accelerate the translation of research to services. This year's conference will be held on July 17-19, 2009, at the Bethesda North Marriot in Rockville, MD, a handicapped accessible hotel. This conference theme is Discovering Openness in Health Systems. The overall goal of each of the Conferences is to provide a forum for discussion about the various challenges, solutions, and opportunities in the research translation pipeline. Participants will discuss best practices in basic and translational research, encourage and solidify systemic connections, and examine methods for collaboration among researchers, clinicians and disease advocates. The annual conferences held by Genetic Alliance have consistently drawn a large, diverse, and dynamic group of participants-last year's annual conference was attended by more than 200 people including advocates, health professionals, policymakers, researchers, industry professionals, and community leaders. The target group for participants is disease communities. We define these communities as composed of the advocate leaders, the clinician-scientists and the basic researchers for each disease. The types of diseases represented at the meeting are diverse: cardiovascular, mental health, skin, eye, liver, kidney, pancreas, bone, cancer, brain, metabolism and blood. These diseases affect individuals across the lifespan. Our conference attendance is typically 65% women, and 15% minority participants. The aim of this and upcoming conferences is to create a forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas between highly diverse groups within the genetics community in order to accelerate research and treatment development. Genetic Alliance is committed to increasing collaboration across various fields - including diseases and disease pathways, federal agencies, and institutions. We build each year upon the prior year's conference. All of the tools we develop are open source and publically available, including all materials from the conference. Previous tools have included the Genetic Alliance BioBank, Disease InfoSearch, the Resource Repository and various best practices.