This proposal requests partial support for the FASEB Scientific Research Conference on NAD Metabolism and Signaling to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 9-14, 2017. This conference began in 2009 and has been attended biennially by researchers from across the world. This conference is critical to the missions of the NIA and the NIDDK because NAD dependent processes mediate healthy aging, digestive health and resistance to prediabetes, diabetes and diabetic complications. Although there are specialized conferences that focus on sirtuins, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARPs), calcium signaling, transcription, mitosis, immunology, drugs and nutritional interventions that interface with the fundamental and translational science of NAD, only one conference cuts across all of these areas to bring together the leading investigators in NAD biology and train the next generation of investigators to advance NAD discovery sciences and to make inroads into improving human health by optimizing NAD Metabolism and Signaling in model organisms and human beings. The major goals of the FASEB Conference on NAD Metabolism and Signaling are to foster new interactions between scientists who do not normally interact in the course of our work and to promote interdisciplinary interactions that will lead to new collaborations, advance the entire field and facilitate translational research leading to safe human interventions to improve healthy aging, digestive health and resistance to the ravages of obesity and diabetes. We expect that the new insights that are formed during the course of this meeting will result in advancement of an evidence basis to optimize NAD metabolism in healthy people and in people affected by diseases of aging, digestion and metabolic dysfunction. The objective of this proposal is to obtain funds to support travel and conference fees for outstanding US investigators, with a particular emphasis on individuals that are junior, female and/or underrepresented in science.
NAD Metabolism and Signaling is a core component of healthy aging, healthy digestion, kidney and metabolic functions. To disseminate results and train the next generation of basic scientists and clinicians, the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology sponsors a biennial meeting. The purpose of this project is to provide necessary gap funding to enable highly meritorious US scientists and underrepresented US trainees, scientists and clinicians to attend this meeting. Support for this meeting will advance the missions of the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
