We request support for the Annual Summer 2017 Symposium of the Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Council (BCVS) of the American Heart Association (AHA). AHA BCVS Council is the leading international organization for cardiovascular scientists. Our annual scientific conference serves as the hallmark annual scientific conference for the AHA BCVS Council for more than a decade and has been partially supported by the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute (NHLBI) since 2005. Ongoing support from NHLBI has helped foster this meeting into the ?go to? conference for cardiovascular biology and disease. This year, the conference will be held July 10-13, 2017, in Portland, Oregon at the downtown Hilton Portland and Executive Tower. The program co-chairs are Drs. Michael S. Kapiloff (University of Miami), Rong Tian (University of Washington, Seattle) and Jennifer E. Van Eyk (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) who have been working closely with the BCVS Chair and their Program Committee to plan and execute this important conference. The program co-chairs have extensive experience organizing national and international conferences, and their scientific expertise covers a broad range of disciplines, e.g. molecular signaling, mitochondrial biology and metabolism, proteomics and big data.
The Specific Aims for this conference are to: (1) Showcase the frontiers of basic and translational cardiovascular science; (2) Enhance collaborations among investigators with diverse geographic locations, disciplines and career stages; (3) Catalyze new ideas/directions; and (4) Inspire the next generation of researchers in cardiovascular science. The planned agenda represents an exciting, fast-paced meeting with 30 sessions over 4 days, including a Keynote lecture by Dr. Calum MacRae, recipient of the 2016 AHA ?One Brave Idea? award. Young cardiovascular scientists will be highlighted through invited talks at each session and poster presentations. Junior scientists will be selected to speak from abstracts submitted within their session topics. In addition, an entire morning of the meeting will be devoted to a competition for the ?Young Investigator Award,? giving opportunity for senior postdocs and junior faculty with outstanding science and future potential to present their work. The 2017 conference will have more than 30% women faculty, reflecting our commitment to improve gender balance among invited speakers. Moreover, one breakfast session focusing on the career development and mentorship for women scientists is planned. Finally, a novel aspect of the meeting will be 3 boot camps focused on i) implementation of emerging `Omic technologies targeting basic science, ii) exploitation of big data and databases to inform basic science studies and iii) one- on-one mentoring to enhance implementation into BCVS attendee's own science programs. The budget requested in this application constitutes approximately 7% of the total meeting budget. Similar to previous years, support from this application will be exclusively used towards 15 Cardiovascular Outreach Awards and 15 Young Investigator Travel Awards.
This proposal highlights the annual Scientific Conference (2017) of the Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Council of the American Heart Association. This meeting convenes basic and translational cardiovascular scientists from around the world with the common goal to discover pathways to cardiovascular therapeutics and promoting cardiovascular health. This meeting has become the ?go to? meeting for intra- and interdisciplinary cross-fertilization of ideas and incorporation of new approaches from the general scientific community and plays a pivotal role in the training of junior scientists and trainees and thus, optimizes the future return of investment in medical research by public dollars.
