David W Smith Workshop on Malformations/Morphogenesis

描述（由申请人提供）：David W. Smith畸形和形态发生年度研讨会已经举办了24年，汇集了畸形学家，胚胎学家，解剖学家，遗传学家和其他致力于更好地理解人类畸形发生和形态发生潜在机制的人。研讨会每年举行一次，是为了庆祝人类临床畸形学之父大卫·w·史密斯的职业生涯而发起的，他首先发起了这些会议。会议通常在夏季的学术校园举行，为期约五天，参加会议的人数为120-140人，这些人是在提交摘要后选出的，并由科学项目委员会进行审查。该工作坊旨在进行互动交流，因此仅限当年出席者参加。大约每五年举行一次国际会议，但大多数会议在美国或加拿大举行。每年由主办方选定3 - 5个中心主题；主题的选择考虑到主题的最后一个焦点，时效性基于新的科学发展和新的领域。例如，今年将集中讨论大脑发育、颅面发育、泌尿生殖发育和表观发育，另外的会议将根据今年提交的摘要讨论更普遍的畸形和形态发生问题。会议由研讨会形式组成，其中简短介绍假设驱动的发现，然后是激烈的讨论期。这些会议有着广泛而刺激的讨论的悠久历史，并为畸形和形态发生领域的研究员和初级教师的发展和招聘提供了特别重要的重点。这项提议是请求以奖学金研究员、初级教员和部分全体会议发言人的旅行津贴的形式，为这些会议提供持续的支助。基于参与者的奉献精神，这些会议具有持续成功的历史，本提案的目标是提供额外的稳定性，特别强调这一研究调查社区的新成员的参与。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The David W. Smith Annual Workshops on Malformations and Morphogenesis have been held for 24 years and bring together a mix of dysmorphologists, embryologists, anatomists, geneticists, and others who work on developing a better understanding of how human malformations occur and there underlying mechanisms of morphogenesis. The workshops are held annually and were initiated in celebration of the career of David W. Smith who was the father of human clinical dysmorphology and first initiated these meetings. Meetings are held over approximately five days typically on an academic campus in the summer and have an attendance of 120-140 individuals who are selected following submissions of abstracts and reviewed by the scientific program committee. The workshop is intended to be an interactive exchange and thus is limited only to those presenting that year. Approximately every five years the meetings have been held internationally but most meetings are in the United States or Canada. Each year three to five central topics are selected by the organizers; the selection of topics takes into account when the topic had last been a focus, timeliness based on new scientific developments, and new fields. As an example, this year will focus on brain development, craniofacial development, urogenital development, and epigenesis, additional sessions are devoted to more general issues of malformation and morphogenesis and based on the abstracts submitted that year. The meetings consist of a workshop format in which short presentations of hypothesis driven findings are then followed by an intense discussion period. The meetings have a long history of wide-ranging and stimulating discussion and have provided an especially important focus for the development and recruitment of fellows and junior faculty into the field of malformation and morphogenesis. This proposal is a request to provide continuing support for these meetings in the form of travel stipends for fellows, junior faculty, and a select number of plenary speakers. These meetings have had a history of continued success based on the dedication of the participants and the goal of this proposal is to provide additional stability with a particular emphasis on the involvement of new members of this research investigative community.