FASEB Summer Research Conference on Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Summary/Abstract This application requests partial funding for the conference on "Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing", administered by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), to be held in Saxtons River, VT July 11-16, 2010. This is the tenth meeting in this series of highly successful biennial conferences that have established a unique forum for researchers with varied backgrounds to discuss vision. The primary goal of the meeting is to bring together participants from diverse areas of neurobiology, computational biology and vision research to discuss state-of-the-art techniques and apply creative scientific thinking to understanding the neurobiological basis of retinal vision. Our 170 participants include both established and young investigators actively involved in retinal research and who historically interact, providing a stimulating, free and lively exchange of ideas. The proposed program provides a critical review of recent research in the field, addresses timely questions that are of high interest to the vision community and serve as a guidepost to future work. The major session topics that will be present in plenary sessions are: 1) Development and Cell Fate, 2) Circuit Remodeling in Response to Disease, 3) Ribbon Synapses, 4) Plasticity of Visual Signaling, 5) Metabotropic Signaling Dynamics, 6) Information Flow In and Out of the Retina, 7) Synaptic and Circuit Mechanisms in the Inner Retina, and 8) Lessons from Other Sensory Systems. An interactive workshop on Analytical Techniques for Retinal Research is planned. Finally, a ninth session features exciting and timely work selected from submitted poster abstracts from junior colleagues. To advertise our two poster sessions and involve our younger participants from the outset, the first morning session features a "Data Blitz" in which 20 of our junior colleagues provide five-minute synopses of their poster presentations. As can be seen from the proposed program and data provided in this application, a unique goal of our meeting is to provide opportunities for pre- and post-doctoral trainees, as well as early stage independent investigators, to meet and share their ideas with each other and with established leaders in the field. To this end, our speaker list includes a significant number of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young investigators. Their inclusion highlights exciting new topics and promotes our new members of the vision research community. Through this strategy, our conference offers opportunities for graduate students to learn about other areas of research and explore postdoctoral possibilities and gives postdoctoral fellows a valuable chance to show that they are ready to assume junior faculty positions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Diseases of the retina, the neural tissue that lines the back of the eye and sends information about the visual world to the rest of the brain, afflict a significant fraction of the population in the United States and the rest of the world. According to the National Eye Institute, more than 3 million Americans over the age of 40 suffer from serious visual impairment, about 1 million of whom are blind. More than 1.7 million in that same age group suffer from advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Diabetic retinopathy afflicts another 4 million. Basic research into the function of the healthy retina and the effects of disease on visual processing is a crucial component of the research funded by the NEI in the ongoing fight to prevent blindness. Of critical importance in this endeavor is the open exchange of new research findings among the community of vision scientists. The FASEB conference on Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing is the premier meeting in the field of retinal biology and visual processing. This broadly focused, cutting-edge meeting attracts the best retina scientists from around the world and provides an intimate setting to maximize scientific interactions at the highest level. This conference has been held biennially over the past 20 years and has stimulated many collaborations resulting in novel work with high impact. This exciting trend will continue with the proposed program at the 2010 conference, to be held July 11-16 in Saxtons River, Vermont. Diverse areas of retinal research will be explored, with specific plenary sessions addressing: development of retina circuitry; circuitry remodeling in response to disease; the functional importance of specialized synaptic connections between retinal neurons; activity dependent changes in retinal circuitry and visual signaling; the dynamics of intracellular signaling pathways triggered by the neurotransmitter glutamate; the information content of signals sent from retinal neurons through the optic nerve to the rest of the brain; circuit processing in the inner part of the retinal network; and insights from neuroscience research in other sensory systems. One afternoon is devoted to an informal, interactive workshop on analytical techniques for retinal research. We make a strong effort at this meeting to foster participation by young people in the field: a significant number of speakers in the plenary sessions are graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, and an entire oral session features their exciting and timely work, which is drawn from poster session abstracts. In addition, the first morning session features a "Data Blitz" wherein very brief synopses are presented by our young investigators, introducing them to the entire group and advertising their posters and our two poster sessions.