Uncomplicating Diabetes: Reducing the Burden of Diabetes Related End-Organ Injury

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Uncomplicating Diabetes: Reducing the Burden of Diabetes Related End-Organ Injury, organized by Drs. Mark E. Cooper, Thomas M. Coffman, Matthias G. von Herrath and Susan Quaggin. The conference will be held February 25 - March 1, 2018 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This Keystone Symposia conference will address diabetic complications which remain the major cause of morbidity and mortality in the diabetic population. Although the outlook has improved over the last two decades with respect to diabetic vascular disease, these complications remain a major burden with the underlying explanation for these complications at a molecular and cellular level as yet not fully clarified. With recent advances in the management of diabetes, particularly new classes of glucose-lowering agents, it is critical to determine if these new therapies have both glucose-dependent and independent effects in reducing diabetes-related end-organ injury. With major advances in our understanding of key pathological features of diabetic complications such as angiogenesis, fibrosis, inflammation and vascular remodeling, albeit in non- diabetic contexts, now is the time to translate this new knowledge to the field of diabetic complications. By learning from and recruiting such researchers into the field of diabetic complications, there is a great opportunity to develop novel, highly innovative approaches to identify new targets in order to discover new ways to treat, reverse or prevent diabetic complications that lead to premature atherosclerosis, heart failure, blindness, cognitive impairment and end-stage renal disease.