The Lasers in Medicine and Biology Gordon Research Conference (LMB-GRC) has a long and rich history of inspiring and educating current and future generations of interdisciplinary scientists and engineers. This conference started in 1965, and since the 1970s, it has been held every-other-year. This conference is respected as one of the premiere meetings for fostering creative research and ideas in optics, optical imaging, lasers, and laser therapy, and their collective use in medicine and biology. The primary objective of this scientific conference is to bring together researchers from academia, hospitals and medical clinics, national laboratories, and industry to understand and advance the use of light and lasers in medical science and therapy, as well as fundamental biological discovery. The conference goals are to encourage scientific exchange between researchers from these diverse areas, and to critically and collectively address the current state of the field, and whereit is headed in the future. This conference funding application is to support the registration fees and/or travel costs of conference participants including but not limited to women, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and among these, under-represented groups, so that they may attend the next LMB-GRC, to be held July 13-18, 2014 at the Holderness School, Holderness, New Hampshire. The support for this meeting will enable us to build new national and international collaborations, as well as strengthen and renew the intellectual connections between senior-level investigators, junior faculty, and graduate students. The sub-theme for our 2014 conference is """"""""From Basic Science Discovery to Translational Applications"""""""", recognizing and highlighting the important role for basic fundamental science, as well as establishing paths to translate these scientific discoveries into practical applications and use with significant impact. Critical to this particular meeting is the interdisciplinary participation of MDs as well a industry-based scientists and engineers, providing an important perspective on current challenges to be addressed. Survey analysis from the 2012 LMB-GRC showed a performance rating of 93%, which was classified as """"""""High-Performing"""""""", and rated among the highest of all GRCs. We expect that this conference will continue to uphold the tradition of being one of the best venues for our biophotonics, biomedical optics, and biomedical optical imaging community. The requested funding to support the participation of women, post-doctoral, and graduate student scientists and engineers will undoubtedly ensure a successful and productive meeting, and provide opportunities that will form the foundation of new careers for these under-represented groups.
The Lasers in Medicine and Biology Gordon Research Conference has nearly a 50-year history of offering a premiere venue by which senior, junior, and student researchers in the fields of biophotonics, biomedical optics, and biomedical imaging can assemble to intellectually survey the state-of-the-art while envisioning future research directions and applications. With a conference sub-theme focus From Basic Science Discovery to Translational Applications, this funding request will support the participation of women, post- doctoral fellows, graduate students, and under-represented groups so that they may leverage the strong interdisciplinary focus of this conference and advance their scientific and engineering careers. This conference, and its emphasis on new technology for biological discovery and clinical applications, explores the current and future use of these advances for improving public health and healthcare.
