The 2011 Gordon Research Conference on Tissue Repair and Regeneration (TRR-GRC) will be held from June 5-10 at Colby Sawyer College, New London, New Hampshire. In conjunction with this meeting, a Gordon-Kenan Graduate Research Symposium (GRS) will be held June 4-5 at the same site. This latter pre- meeting is designed to provide a platform for graduate students and post docs to present work relevant to tissue repair/regeneration so that they become more fully integrated into the TRR-GRC that follows. This will be the tenth iteration of the full TRR-GRC and the first that includes a GRS pre-meeting. Both conferences address topics that sit at the crossroads of cell/developmental biology and medicine/tissue engineering- how the body's different tissues sense and respond to tissue damage. These topics are a major public health/clinical concern as inadequate wound healing following trauma or surgery and diseases that involve misregulated tissue repair responses, such as fibrosis and cancer, affect millions in the US per year. Nine scientific sessions are planned which span the basic and translational science of tissue repair and regeneration: 1) Danger Signaling, 2) Barrier repair and regeneration, 3) Tissue Engineering, 4) Organ repair and regeneration, 5) Cancer as a disease of misregulated wound healing, 6) Regenerating pattern throughout the animal kingdom, 7) Inflammation, 8) Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, and 9) Matrix and Fibrosis. In all sessions we have invited speakers who have recently published high profile stories of broad interest. Sessions 2-4, 6-7, and 9 are traditional for this meeting whereas the sessions on danger signaling, cancer and wound healing, and stem Cells/regenerative medicine are meant to highlight emerging new directions in the field to which attendees from any discipline would benefit from exposure. Indeed, this TRR-GRC is unique in that it has traditionally sought a very diverse group of scientists, from basic cell biologists/bioengineers to clinicians, attacking the problems of tissue repair and regeneration with a variety of experimental approaches and models. Exposing these groups to each other and fostering the discussions and collaborations that result from this exposure, is a major longstanding goal of this TRR-GRC. Our diverse speakers will emphasize unpublished results and be encouraged to make their presentations accessible to attendees from outside their immediate disciplines. Participation by junior scientists (students and postdocs) will be greatly facilitated by the GRS pre-meeting and indeed many of the TRR-GRC invited speakers and discussion leaders are junior investigators actively taking the field in exciting new directions. These will be complemented with eminent senior investigators who have a comprehensive and historical view of the field. Participation by underrepresented minorities will be encouraged and actively sought and scholarships subsidizing their involvement will be offered through existing TRR-GRC programs. Generous NIH support will substantially enhance the quality of the program and collaborative opportunities fostered by the planned program.
This proposal requests funds to support a scientific meeting whose topic is tissue repair and regeneration. These subjects are a major public health concern as traumatic injury is a leading cause of death for young Americans and inadequate healing/repair due to a variety of physiological factors (age, infection, fibrosis) or disease states (diabetes, vascular disease, cancer) is a major clinical preoccupation and public health burden. The philosophy behind the meeting is that a thorough understanding of the basic science of repair/regeneration can be translated into effective therapies for tissue repair and regeneration.
