This proposal seeks funding to support new junior vitreoretinal faculty and vitreoretinal practitioners early after training who have interest in pediatric retina to attend and present at the second Advances in Pediatric Retina international meeting to be held in Salt Lake City, UT in 2019. Pediatric retina conditions are numerous but rare, and little is understood about their causes and management. Additional study after retina fellowship training is necessary for retina specialists who wish to successfully manage pediatric retinal conditions, because conditions are rare and new conditions are recognized with the ability to genetically characterize them. A two-year fellowship is not long enough to afford sufficient educational opportunities that include management of a pathophysiologic spectrum of each disease. We request support for junior trainees, the ?students of pediatric retina?, who have interest in pursuing or continuing the pursuit of diagnosing and treating pediatric retina conditions. Besides support to attend the meeting, the junior trainees will have opportunities to present their own clinical, translational or basic research in pediatric retina conditions. In addition to clinical expertise from international experts, there will also be keynote lectures by translational scientists in basic, translational and clinical research to explore new thinking of pathophysiology and treatment through lecture, panel discussions and presentations.
The Specific Aims of this meeting are: 1. To bring together clinician/surgeons with expertise and interest in a wide range of areas related to the most common and difficult public health concerns in pediatric retina to explore better management, treatments and cures, methods to optimize vision in developing infants and children, and to disseminate knowledge; 2. To engage an international audience in order to address the wide differences in manifestations of more common pediatric retinal conditions, in order to understand reasons for differences and to address barriers and incentives for optimal treatments; 3. To incorporate basic research understanding and engage clinicians in order to spur interest in experimental designs and foster collaborations between scientists and clinicians to test hypotheses of pathophysiology and treatment of diseases, and to introduce limitations of experimental methods in studying human diseases to scientists through clinical discussions and presentations; 4. To educate new junior vitreoretinal faculty and vitreoretinal practitioners early after training about the diagnosis and management of pediatric retina conditions and enhance networking. This second Advances in Pediatric Retina meeting will bring together pediatric retina specialists, pediatric ophthalmologists and translational scientists to educate future and current pediatric retina specialists to expand and improve our understanding and treatment of pediatric retina conditions.
The Advances in Pediatric Retina meeting will bring together clinicians/surgeons with expertise in pediatric retina, pediatric ophthalmology, and clinical, translational and basic research to improve on the management of the conditions that threaten vision in infants and children. Key topics include retinopathy of prematurity, Coats' Disease, tumors including retinoblastoma, surgery, gene therapy and clinical studies. This meeting will have impact through collaborations between science and clinical pediatric retina and in opportunities to train the upcoming and current pediatric retina specialists. !
