OSA Life Science Congress - Optics and the Brain

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Funding Opportunity: Agency Opportunity Title: Principal Investigator: Project Director: Proposal Title: PA-16-294 (Reissue of PA-13-347) NIH - NINDS NIH Support for conferences and Scientific Meetings (R13/U13) Gregory J. Quarles, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, The Optical Society Elizabeth Hillman, Ph.D., Columbia University, New York, NY OSA: Optics and the Brain Project Summary /Abstract: This proposal is requesting funds to support the 2017 Optics and the Brain meeting, to be held 2-5 April, San Diego, CA, organized by The Optical Society (OSA). Founded in 2015 in response to the USA BRAIN Initiative and the European Human Brain Project, this meeting will be the 3rd OSA Optics and the Brain meeting. Optical technologies have become an essential aspect of cutting edge neuroscience research, from multiscale imaging of structure and function, to optogenetics and the development of new forms of optical contrast and manipulation. This meeting seeks to bring together interdisciplinary scientists to present and discuss the latest developments and advances in all areas of Optics and the Brain. Optics offers a powerful framework for multiscale imaging of the living and intact brain, while new genetic labeling strategies enable optical read-outs of neural function and the control of cellular function via optogenetics. Optics and the Brain is a rapidly expanding, highly interdisciplinary area of research that combines broad aspects of neuroscience, biology, medicine, physics, chemistry and engineering. This conference will serve as a forum for diverse discussion of existing and emerging techniques as well as future directions capable of shedding new light on the healthy and diseased brain. It will also include perspectives from industry and offers an effective platform to educate our students, future scientists and engineers in multidisciplinary fields. A new feature in the 2017 program will be to speak to the challenges of rapidly disseminating, commercializing and supporting new technologies for research applications. The 2017 meeting will be held at the biennial ‘OSA Optics in the Life Sciences Congress’ and co-located with 4 other meetings: “Novel Techniques in Microscopy”, “Bio-Optics: Design and Application”, “Optical Molecular Probes, Imaging and Drug Delivery” and “Optical Trapping Applications”. Joint sessions between these meetings, as well as combined social events and poster sessions will foster interdisciplinary cross-talk, communication and new collaborations. The Congress will consist of 5 parallel sessions with plenary, invited and contributed talks and poster sessions. Peer-reviewed submissions and selected digitally-captured presentations will be archived online. Results presented at the meeting will also be captured within a special issue of OSA Biomedical Optics Express. Funding from NIH will provide support to attract diverse, high level invited speakers, enabling attendance of international leaders in the field as well as outstanding junior and minority speakers and trainees. The meeting will provide broad exposure to a very active multidisciplinary field with direct applications today, allowing the development of novel collaborations and opportunities for students and trainees to network with thought leaders. The interdisciplinary nature of the co-located meetings will provide cross-fertilization of concepts and techniques between fields with the resulting synergies obtained from such interactions.