Weinstein Cardiovascular Development and Regeneration Conference

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

PROJECT SUMMARY This proposal requests support for the 2023 Weinstein Cardiovascular Development and Regeneration Conference, which will be held in San Diego, California. The Weinstein Cardiovascular Development and Regeneration Conference was founded to create an open forum for investigators studying the etiology, pathology, and eventual treatment of congenital heart diseases (CHDs). This tradition initiated with a series of annual meetings that brought together investigators who were funded by three separate NIH RFAs on Cardiac Development; these RFAs, the first of which was issued in 1984, were sponsored by Dr. Constance Weinstein and her colleagues at the NHLBI. Since its origins, this conference has been the premier opportunity for researchers in the field of cardiovascular developmental biology to meet and share their data and ideas. During the 3-day meeting, basic scientists, clinicians, engineers, and geneticists come together to interact and discuss a multitude of cardiovascular developmental mechanisms and their impact on CHDs, as well as the secondary outcomes that result in adult cardiac dysfunction. This conference is unique for several reasons. First, it is a freestanding meeting that is entirely organized by active researchers within the cardiovascular developmental biology community who are unaffiliated with any society or parent organization. Second, with the exception of the keynote speakers, all oral platform presentations are chosen from abstracts submitted by early career faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. This approach insures that only cutting-edge data are shown and avoids repetitive presentations by established investigators selected solely by reputation. Third, this conference is consistently attended by a substantial number of senior investigators in the cardiovascular developmental biology field, even though they are not delivering oral presentations and are required to pay for their own registration and travel expenses. Fourth, the conference community maintains a welcoming and collaborative atmosphere that encourages sharing of innovative and unpublished data. As in prior iterations of this conference, the objectives of the 2023 Weinstein Cardiovascular Development and Regeneration Conference are to promote a collegial environment for dissemination and discussion of innovative and unpublished scientific findings, to encourage interactions and collaborations among colleagues in the field, and to enhance the professional development of a diverse array of early career faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students by providing a platform for the presentation of their data and an opportunity to network and interact with established cardiovascular developmental biologists. In this application, financial support is requested to subsidize registration fees for trainees in order to encourage robust attendance of early career researchers, to provide financial assistance in the form of travel awards for selected trainees, with a particular focus on supporting attendance of women, underrepresented groups, and individuals with disabilities, and to support general conference costs.