FASEB's The Ion Channel Regulation Conference

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This is an application for partial support of the 10th biennial FASEB Science Research Conference on Ion Channel Regulation that will be held from June 27 to July 2 2021 at the Oak Island Resort & Conference Center in Nova Scotia, Canada. The objectives of this conference are to: stimulate discourse, seed new ideas, and facilitate collaboration in ways that will accelerate new discoveries about ion channels at the basic and translational levels, and to provide a forum for trainees to participate in scientific sessions and in career development activities. Regulation of ion channel function is essential for myriad physiological functions including neuronal signaling, pain transduction, and the beating of the heart. Accounting for ~2% of human genes, ion channels are subject to numerous disease-causing mutations, leading to over 55 inherited disorders termed “channelopathies”, including epilepsy, migraine, several neurological disorders, blindness, deafness, diabetes, hypertension, several different cardiac arrhythmias, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, skin diseases and cancer. Importantly, considering the central involvement of ion channels, these diseases share a great deal in common in terms of disease mechanisms and potential therapeutic development with ion channels being the target of numerous drugs. Thus, the topic of our conference is both timely and highly relevant for a broad population of scientists, clinicians, and the general public and will benefit greatly from the ion channel community coming together. The meeting will be co-chaired by Isabelle Deschênes from The Ohio State University and Gea-Ny Tseng from Virginia Commonwealth University, both recognized leaders in ion channel biology with expertise between the two of them covering all aspects of ion channel research going from structure-function, transcriptional regulation, trafficking, regulation and channelopathies. The Program consists of nine scientific sessions, two keynote addresses, and two breakout sessions focused on interactions with experts from academia, NIH and industry and a career development session. Most scientific sessions are organized around general themes rather than ion channel subtype and organs, to foster crosstalk between fields typically kept separate in traditional conferences. There will be 32 session speakers giving full talks, including at least 18 women (56% of speakers) and 9 session chairs (4 of whom are women, 44%). Most of the invited speakers (90%) have not presented at this conference during the prior two meetings. Of the 32 session speakers, we currently have 9 early career stage investigators (28%) and 9 members of under-represented minorities in science (28%). We will also have 8 additional short talks which will be selected from the abstracts submitted and dedicated to junior investigators which will therefore encompass 36% of our speakers, giving them the opportunity to get broad exposure. We have placed emphasis on comprehensive scientific themes shared across ion channel types seeking to catalyze on the knowledge from each to benefit the broader field and will allow us to build multidisciplinary networks across the different ion channels.