The 2013 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms will focus on integrating basic and translational science with clinically relevant topics. This is the 6th GRC on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms. Every two years since 2003, this international meeting has provided a venue for scientific discourse on the mechanisms that underlie disturbances in cardiac rhythm and lethal arrhythmias, and the novel approaches to therapy and prevention. The meeting draws broad participation from the national and international communities of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and senior faculty, working in academia or in industry, which share a common interest in the fight against cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. We postulate that urgently needed advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cardiac arrhythmias are likely to develop through an integrative approach, drawing from various fields such as genetics, proteomics and advanced informatics, molecular and structural biology, stem cell biology, protein chemistry, biophysics, theory of wave propagation, mapping, imaging, computer modeling and nonlinear dynamics. Communication is therefore key in the integration of such potentially disparate information, as we seek to achieve a common goal. In conducting this conference, we seek to: """"""""Provide a forum for face-to-face dialog between basic and clinical scientists. We propose that this is crucial for identification of key areas ripe for translation from bench to bedside. The GRC is an ideal venue for the meeting of the minds that can form new bridges across the basic-to-clinic gap in the focused area of cardiac arrhythmia mechanisms. """"""""Bring together scientists with expertise in disparate fields and yet, focused in a common objective. We propose that, as ideas are critical, so is the exposure to novel state-of-the-art methodologies. This GRC brings together investigators that apply a variety of highly sophisticated methods for one common purpose: to better understand the mechanisms, and improve the diagnosis, treatment and risk stratification of patients with arrhythmia disease. """"""""Provide the fabric for networking between current leaders in the field, and those that will lead in the future. We propose that the future of research in cardiac arrhythmias rests on the new generation. Networking at an early stage fosters open and long lasting collaborations, key to discovery. GRC conferences create the setting, where future leaders link with current ones and with their peers, to build the foundation of knowledge that will support arrhythmia research in the years to come.
Loss of the normal heart rhythm is a major cause of disability and of death throughout the world. Urgently needed advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cardiac arrhythmias are likely to develop through a multidisciplinary approach that requires extensive communication among investigators. The GRC conference will bring together the leading experts and young promising investigators in their respective fields, to present and discuss the most exciting new contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of cardiac rhythm disturbances.
