Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death for infants born with birth defects and represents 1% of births in the USA, and according to the NIH that is 8 out of every 1,000 newborns. Successful treatment of CHD offers opportunities to improve quality of life for individuals afflicted with this disease with consequent benefit to society. Over 1 million adults in the USA are living with congenital heart defects. The field of engineering application in congenital heart disease has undergone an explosive growth in both application and development nationally worldwide over the past decades. The cutting edge problems that are the subject of this conference are at the interface of engineering and medicine. The 5th International Conference on Engineering Frontiers in Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease brings together leading professionals in both the engineering and medical disciplines to foster collaboration between these two communities in the study of treatment of congenital diseases. The close interaction of medical doctors and engineering researchers is critical to achieving advances in the treatment of this disease and to bring engineering to bear as an aid to physicians in understanding the complex blood flow and resulting from this congenital disease, in improving and developing diagnostic tools, and in improving treatment planning. This conference aims to impact improved treatment and understanding of this age-related disease that afflicts a significant segment of the US population with the consequent improvement in patient quality of life and reduction of medical costs associated with CHD treatment. This conference also aims to expose and engage emerging researchers in a common forum to exchange the latest in developments in the field and to further establish domestic and international collaborations. These researchers will be recruited from the pool of current and recent Ph.D. graduates, Post-Docs and Fellows. The PIs will preferentially offer support to members of underrepresented groups involved in biomedical engineering research in pediatric and congenital heart disease, thus upholding the national goal of engaging underrepresented groups into the STEM disciplines. This conference as well provides successful role models for women who have established vibrant research programs and labs in this field, for instance, there are two female researcher professors on their international organizing and steering committees. The conference offers many more opportunities, invited speakers, session chairs, and panel discussions, for beginning and established female engineering and medical researchers engaged in CHD research to network at the national and international level, and thereby actively promotes recruitment of females in STEM.
It is vital to maintain the continuity of the International Conference on Engineering Frontiers in Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease series that effectively brings together leading researchers in engineering and medicine who are engaged in cutting edge research in pediatric and congenital heart disease. The conference provides a forum to exchange of ongoing and latest breakthrough research, to expose innovative ideas, and to build research collaborations between leading researchers from across the USA and Europe. Moreover, the conference promotes new researchers becoming engaged in the field through the Young Investigator podium speaker program and its young investigator poster competition. This series of conferences has historically attracted both USA and international participants. Specifically, through this award, NSF will support: (1) Invited Speaker Program: support travel expenses of ten (10) distinguished university faculty and medical professionals who are foremost experts in congenital heart disease to attend Frontiers 2016 and deliver invited podium presentations on their on-going research and (2) Travel of Young Investigators and Graduate Students: the PIs will support Young Investigators (4 non-UCF investigators) who will deliver podium (oral) presentations and graduate students (6 non-UCF students) to participate in Frontiers 2016. Young investigators present podium talks and PhD students participate in the poster presentation and competition. There will be a poster competition with awards for 1st-3rd place judged by a panel selected from the invited speakers. Moreover, there will be a panel-led debate to address the pros and cons of the issue: will CFD ever reach the bedside and should it? The conference organizers have made every effort and have achieved the goal of keeping a 50/50 balance between engineering faculty and medical professionals in all invited and keynote lectures as well as panel-led debates. The PIs have also secured a special issue of the World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery to collect a series of selected papers from the invited speakers as a follow-up to the conference. The NSF funds will leverage financial sponsorship that has been secured from academic and two medical institutions in support the conference program.
