The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has been a leader in the effort to facilitate the bidirectional exchange of cutting edge scientific information between scientists and investigators in rheumatic diseases through its annual Basic Research Conference, a scientific symposium that occurs immediately prior to the ACR Annual Meeting at the site of the meeting. The Annual Meeting, which attracts more than 15,000 attendees, is the principal mechanism for providing a forum for the exchange of ideas about research, education, patient care, practice management and advocacy issues. The ACR?s conference and scientific meetings draws together appropriate experts who may otherwise not have an opportunity to meet. In order to emphasize the principles of basic science underlying the pathogenesis of rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, the ACR has built specific programs emphasizing basic science into the Annual Meeting. The topic for the first of the five proposed conferences will be Cellular Metabolism and Stress Response in Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Disease. This will be a state-of-the-art conference addressing how cellular metabolism regulates immune cell fate and functions, within the context of rheumatic diseases. The sessions will guide the attendee first through the principles of bioenergetics and metabolic homeostasis, and how it is altered in the inflammatory state, drawing examples from cancer, obesity and inflammatory diseases. There will be a major emphasis on how the rapidly evolving understanding of cellular metabolism can be used to reveal novel targets to treat autoimmune diseases. The meeting has been organized by Cornelia Weyand, MD, Stanford University, Laurence Morel, PhD, University of Florida and the ACR Committee on Research (Anne-Marie Malfait, PhD, Rush University Medical Center). Dr. Weyand is a Physician-Investigator specializing in the immunopathology of rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory blood vessel disease. Her clinical interests have focused on the care of patients with refractory rheumatoid arthritis and vasculitis. Dr. Morel is a Professor within the Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Florida. Dr. Morel also is the Director of the Division Experimental Pathology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine at the University of Florida.
To foster understanding of disease and development of new therapies for patients with rheumatic diseases, this conference seeks to (1) assemble rheumatology clinicians and researchers in a scientific forum to discuss advances in the disease (2) strategize on research related to new treatments of rheumatic diseases and (3) foster mentoring of young investigators and fellows-in-training.
