Heart Disease and Regeneration: Insights from Development

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled Heart Disease and Regeneration: Insights from Development, organized by Vincent M. Christoffels, James F. Martin and Deborah L. Yelon. The meeting will be held in Copper Mountain, Colorado from March 1-6, 2015. Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, affecting both children and adults. It is now clear that congenital heart defects result from disorders in developmental mechanisms and that these disorders are often the consequence of genetic variation. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that these same developmental mechanisms and genetic variations contribute to heart disease throughout life, and this understanding could be leveraged for regenerative therapies. This Keystone Symposia meeting will highlight new concepts in cardiovascular development, regeneration, and repair and will emphasize common molecular mechanisms with therapeutic potential for cardiovascular regeneration. The goal of this meeting is to bring together researchers with expertise in cardiac development, molecular biology, stem cell biology, genetics, and epigenetics to facilitate our understanding of heart development and homeostasis and to explore scientific directions and therapeutic approaches for the treatment of heart disease in children and adults. Emerging technologies for genome editing and imaging will be discussed with the aim of facilitating new research directions and translational approaches. The symposium is scheduled in parallel with a symposium dedicated to the complementary topic of non-myocyte contributions to cardiac structure and function. Joint sessions and keynote lectures at the start and the end of the meetings serve as a conceptual framework for the involvement of the different cardiac cell types in disease mechanisms and regeneration. The meeting topic is highly relevant to the NHLBI, which provides leadership for a national program in diseases of the heart, blood and vessels, and which fosters and supports an integrated and coordinated program of basic research and clinical investigations.