2017 AUA BASIC SCIENCES SYMPOSIUM ?FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION OF STEM CELLS, REGENERATION, AND REPAIR IN UROLOGY? Project Summary/Abstract: This application requests support to convene a full-day symposium during the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA), to be held on May 12, 2017 from 8am to 5pm in Boston Massachusetts. This symposium will continue our highly successful series, the ?Urologic Oncology Research Symposium,? which has been held annually since 2013. The topic for 2017 is ?Innovative Therapeutics for Personalized Medicine: From Cell and Protein Engineering to Novel Nanomedicines,? and will be devoted to featuring world-renowned experts in protein and cell engineering, as well as nanomedicine, to communicate and discuss their most recent advances relevant to prostate, bladder, and kidney cancer to both academic and private practice urologists as well as physician-scientists and researchers throughout the field. Support for this symposium would primarily provide travel awards for approximately 18 early-career investigators to attend. Goals of the symposium include 1) sharing information that will ultimately lead to more effective treatments, catalyzing the translation of laboratory research to practical application, and 2) serving as a forum where young investigators have the opportunity to interact with leaders in a host of disciplines related to prostate, bladder and kidney cancer. An attendance of 400-500 is anticipated. Nine of fifteen invited speakers have already accepted invitations to provide presentations and answer questions in sessions including Developmental Principles in Regeneration, Regeneration & Repair: Learning from Beyond Urology, Host Recipient-Biomaterial-Microenvironment Interactions, and Clinical Trials and Bioethics of Regeneration. The Principal Investigator for this symposium project is Carolyn Best, PhD, the Director of Research for the American Urological Association. The Program Committee Chair is Rosalyn Adam, PhD of Brigham and Women?s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Program Committee members include: ? Joshua R. Mauney, PhD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; Staff Scientist, Boston Children?s Hospital, Department of Urology. ? Cathy Mendelsohn, PhD, Professor of Urological Sciences in the Departments of Urology, Pathology, Genetics and Development, Columbia University. ? Trinity Bivalacqua, MD, PhD, Director of Urologic Oncology, Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital. ? Carol Podlasek, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago. ? Darius J. Bgli, MD, CM, Staff Urologist, Senior Associate Scientist, and Professor of Surgery & Physiology /Associate Surgeon-In-Chief, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto. ? Aria Olumi, MD, AUA Chair of Research, attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Urology, and Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School. Speakers will include: Melissa Little, PhD (Keynote), University of Queensland; Cathy Mendelsohn, PhD , Columbia University; Michelle Southard-Smith, PhD, Vanderbilt University; Laura Perin Gallandt, PhD, University of Southern California; David Hackam, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins University; Jennifer Lewis, DSc, Harvard University & Wyss Institute; Samantha Morris, PhD, Washington University at St. Louis; Stephen Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD (Keynote), University of Pittsburgh; Samuel Stupp, PhD, Northwestern University; Joshua Mauney, PhD, Boston Children's Hospital & Harvard Medical School; Arun Sharma, PhD, Northwestern University; Carol Podlasek, PhD, University of Illinois, Chicago; Trinity Bivalacqua*, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins University; Nancy King, JD, Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine; and Joseph Vacanti, MD, BioStage. We will recruit a large variety of clinician, physician-scientist, and researcher attendees, with special emphasis on early-career investigators and groups typically underrepresented in urologic research. A robust plan is in place for publicizing the conference and the support, if awarded, by NIDDK.
2017 AUA BASIC SCIENCES SYMPOSIUM ?FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION OF STEM CELLS, REGENERATION, AND REPAIR IN UROLOGY? Project Narrative/Public Health Relevance Statement: In May 2017, the American Urological Association (AUA) will offer its seventh annual full-day Basic Sciences Symposium, which will be held in conjunction with the AUA Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. This year?s symposium is titled ?Function and Dysfunction of Stem Cells, Regeneration, and Repair in Urology.? Urologic diseases and conditions have a major impact on public health, impacting the lives of tens of millions of men and women across the U.S. The so-called ?benign? (non-cancer) urologic public health problems include myriad diseases and conditions of the kidney, ureter, bladder, prostate, urethra, corpus cavernosum, and other urinary tract elements that are impacted by injury and degenerative stimuli that can be potentially improved through increased understanding of opportunities in stem cell therapy and other approaches to regeneration and repair. There is immense potential of new insights from this rapidly advancing field to be translated to the clinic for improvements in prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy for urology patients. For example, urinary incontinence and its consequences have an enormous impact on public health, impacting millions of men and women, and recent insights on the potential role of stem cells in treating this condition highlight just one of the ways that increased knowledge in regeneration and repair can be leveraged to address these major urologic health problems. This symposium aims to address this need by bringing together renowned experts in stem cells, regeneration and repair, both within the specialty of urology but also from other disciplines, to discuss leading-edge advances with the urology clinical and research communities, many of whom have limited opportunities to gain understanding of these advances at sufficient depth to leverage them towards improvements for patients. A second but similarly important goal is to ensure the inclusion and networking of early-career urology physician-scientists and researchers so that they are best positioned to lead the next wave of advances to help patients with ?benign? (non-cancer) urologic diseases and conditions, and reduce ? or eliminate where possible ? the devastating impact caused for millions of men and women across the U.S. and worldwide.
