David W Smith Workshop on Malformations/Morphogenesis

描述(申请人提供)：David W.Smith关于畸形和形态发生的年度研讨会已经举办了24年，聚集了畸形学家、胚胎学家、解剖学家、遗传学家和其他致力于更好地了解人类畸形是如何发生的以及形态发生的潜在机制的人。这些研讨会每年举行一次，是为了纪念大卫·W·史密斯的职业生涯，他是人类临床畸形学之父，首次发起了这些会议。会议大约持续五天，通常在夏季的学术校园举行，有120-140人出席，他们是在提交摘要后被挑选出来的，并由科学计划委员会审查。讲习班的目的是互动式交流，因此仅限于当年的与会者。这些会议大约每五年在国际上举行一次，但大多数会议都在美国或加拿大举行。每年由组织者选择三到五个中心主题；主题的选择考虑到主题上次成为焦点的时间、基于新的科学发展和新的领域的及时性。例如，今年将重点讨论脑发育、颅面发育、泌尿生殖器官发育和表观发育，并在当年提交的摘要的基础上，增加了关于畸形和形态发生的更一般问题的会议。这些会议包括研讨会形式，在这种形式下，对假设驱动的研究结果进行简短的陈述，然后进行激烈的讨论。这些会议有着广泛和激动人心的讨论历史，并为发展和招聘畸形和形态发生领域的研究员和初级教员提供了一个特别重要的重点。这项提议是请求以为研究员、初级教员和选定数量的全体演讲者提供旅费的形式继续为这些会议提供支助。基于与会者的奉献精神，这些会议有持续成功的历史，这项提议的目标是提供更多的稳定，特别强调这一研究调查界的新成员的参与。

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.