This proposal requests support for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled Neurodegenerative Diseases: The Molecular and Cellular Basis for Neurodegeneration, organized by Ted M. Dawson, Virginia M.-Y. Lee and Stephen M. Strittmatter, which will be held in Taos, New Mexico from February 21 - 26, 2011. Neurodegenerative diseases are chronic age-dependent progressive disorders that are substantial and growing health problems, which exert a tremendous toll on the patient, family, health system and society as a whole. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to identify therapies that slow and/or reverse the progression of these disorders. Research in neurodegenerative disorders is providing tremendous advances in the molecular understanding of these disorders. New insights in cell biology, biochemistry, genomics and proteomics into these illnesses are leading to mechanism-based therapies and new tools and biomarkers to study disease progression and therapeutic efficacy. In this meeting an emphasis will be placed on understanding new molecular and common mechanisms of disease in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson's Disease (PD), triple repeat diseases, frontotemporal lobar dementia and others. This meeting will provide a forum to bring together basic and translational scientists from both academia and industry to share data, identify key areas to focus future research, and to create new collaborations in the translational neuroscience of neurodegenerative disease.
According to the World Health Organization, neurologic disorders are the leading cause of death, disability and loss of quality of life worldwide. In the US, neurological disorders affect approximately 50 million Americans and cost an estimated $400 billion annually in medical and related expenses. Neurodegenerative diseases are projected to triple over the next several decades as the percentage of elderly increases dramatically.
