This proposal is requesting partial support for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty to participate in the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) entitled ?Neuroimmune Communication in Health and Disease: Exploring Neuroimmunology From Single Cells to Organisms?, which will be held in Ventura, CA on January 13-18, 2019. The overall goal of this international conference is to increase our understanding of mechanisms that regulate neuro-immune interactions during homeostasis and neurological disorders. The field of neuroimmunology has evolved considerably over the past two decades and emerged as one of the fastest moving disciplines in biomedical research. Neuroimmunology GRC is specifically designed to capture the breadth of the field through cutting-edge sessions focused on how the immune system interacts with healthy and diseased CNS. This meeting will represent a blend of immunology and neuroscience, and will congregate top tier scientists operating at the nexus between these two disciplines. Novel concepts pertaining to the complexities of the neuroimmune interface will be explored and discussed in featured talks and daily poster sessions. An intended strength of this meeting will be encouragement of the young scientists in the field, especially the trainees, to lead the discussions. The major session themes of Neuroimmune communication in health and disease GRC will capture some of the most exciting areas of contemporary cutting-edge research in the field, such as the role of microglia and other glia during homeostasis and in neurological diseases, immune effects on brain function, immunity and neurodegenerative diseases, blood-brain barrier and other barriers? function and dysfunction, microbiome-CNS communication, infections as triggers of CNS immunity, and neuroimmunology of peripheral nervous system. We will also have a particular emphasis on big-data (omics) approaches in neuroimmunology. The information gained from this meeting will simultaneously advance the fields of immunology and neuroscience by teaching us more about how these two interwoven systems interact. This should in turn stimulate the development of new applications and strategies to improve the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases that affect the CNS. Very few CNS diseases proceed without eliciting an immune reaction. In addition, immune dysregulation can result from disruptions in neural function. Thus, this GRC will explore the equally important question of how the nervous system communicates with immune cells throughout the body.
The 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Neuroimmune Communication in Health and Disease: Exploring Neuroimmunology From Single Cells to Organisms is highly translational and is of great relevance to human health. Nearly all neurological disorders are associated with an immune response, and it is now recognized that disequilibrium in the neural-immune interface can trigger a plethora of diseases in the CNS and periphery. The ultimate goal of this conference is to help fulfill the missions of the National Institutes of Health by providing a detailed understanding and stimulating discussions of these complex interactions, which will improve our ability to diagnose, prevent, and treat human diseases with a neuro-immune component.
