Monday, August 20, 2018 to Tuesday, August 21, 2018 (registration required)
NIH Clinical Center (Building 10), Masur Auditorium
Gene-based therapies are a promising and cutting-edge approach for treatment of rare diseases. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research are co-sponsoring a workshop to review the state of current gene therapy approaches, identify challenges and strategies to overcome them, and discuss how to collaboratively scale and accelerate gene therapy development to benefit patients with rare diseases for which there is no effective treatment. This joint meeting will facilitate discussion among stakeholders (NIH and FDA staff, academics, researchers, biotech- and pharma-industry and patient group representatives) on overcoming bottlenecks in the development of gene-based therapies.
The agenda includes sessions on pre-clinical and clinical development; manufacturing issues; transitioning therapies from academia to biotech to pharma; and the challenges in making these therapies a reality for those affected by the approximately 7,000 rare diseases for which there is no effective treatment.
The workshop also will be videocast at https://videocast.nih.gov.
Thursday, August 23, 2018, 8:30 am to Friday, August 24, 2018, 1:00 pm (registration required)
The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) invites you to join us at the Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging to collaborate on innovative artificial intelligence applications for diagnostic medical imaging. NIH, along with the American College of Radiology (ACR), the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), and the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research (the Academy), are co-sponsoring this workshop. The goal of the workshop is to bring together scientific and medical experts to answer the following questions:
1. What are the scientific/informatics, and technological hurdles still to be overcome before clinical AI applications in MI are robust with respect to quality, reproducibility, and trustworthiness for clinical use?
2. How can these gaps be addressed and hurdles, such as databases 'walls', be overcome?
3. How will AI improve the value of medical imaging in healthcare overall?
Thursday, September 6, 2018 to Friday, September 7, 2018 (registration required)
NIH Natcher Conference Center (Building 45)
The 2018 Chromatin Control of Viral Infection Workshop will focus on epigenetic mechanisms that regulate viral chromatin states, viral encoded factors that modulate viral and/or cellular chromatin, and epigenetic control of host cell antiviral responses. Like their cellular hosts, invading viral pathogens that depend upon the host cell nuclear machinery are also subject to the regulatory impacts of chromatin. For lytic pathogens, successful infection depends upon the ability to counter cellular defense mechanisms that can result in suppressive heterochromatin assembled on the viral genome along with utilization of cellular chromatin modulation activities that promote efficient viral gene transcription and DNA replication. Additionally, viral pathogens whose complex replication cycles include coupled stages of lytic replication and latency/persistence are impacted by epigenetic modulation that plays a controlling role in determining the viral state. Research into the basic biology of chromatin deposition, modification, and modulation/remodeling will contribute to the understanding of the complex host-viral interactions that influence the progression of viral diseases. Additionally, insights into the role of epigenetic machinery in controlling viral infection can present novel opportunities for prophylaxis or treatment.
Friday, September 7, 2018 to Saturday, September 8, 2018
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
On Friday, September 7 and Saturday, September 8, 2018, the National Institutes of Health and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in association with the National Endowments for the Arts, will host Music and the Mind, Shaping Our Children’s Lives Through Music Engagement. For this second Sound Health event, acclaimed musical artists will join top neuroscientists to explore links between music, rhythm, and brain development.
The event will kick off with Music and the Mind: The Concert on September 7. Presenters and performers include NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, soprano and Kennedy Center Artistic Advisor at Large Renée Fleming, CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, tabla master Zakir Hussain, pianist and Kennedy Center Artistic Director of Jazz Jason Moran, along with other special musical guests, and neuroscientists Drs. John Iversen, Nina Kraus, Charles Limb, and Laurel Trainor. The event continues on September 8 with a day-long series of activities, workshops, and discussions with artists, educators, and neuroscientists that will explore how rhythm and music impact our lives from a young age.
Monday, September 10, 2018 to Tuesday, September 11, 2018 (register by September 4)
September 10: William F. Bolger Center, 9600 Newbridge Drive, Potomac, Maryland 20854
September 11: NCATS Building B, 3rd Floor Boardroom, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850
The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is supporting a two-day workshop that will cover a broad range of critical concepts underlying assay development for high-throughput screening and lead discovery projects, along with hands-on data analysis training. This workshop, which will feature presentations by NCATS staff and scientists from several pharmaceutical companies, is designed to disseminate critical information about the implementation of robust assay methods and is particularly relevant for researchers developing bioassays for the discovery of drugs or chemical probes. Many of the workshop instructors have 20 to 30 years of experience in the field of drug discovery.
This workshop will be a valuable resource for academic, industrial and government laboratory scientists who are developing test methods for low- or high-throughput screening that are amenable to automation using appropriate statistical and operational concepts. It will also be beneficial to early career researchers and experienced investigators who wish to learn about the latest assay concepts for high-throughput screening and lead optimization.
Wednesday, September 12, 2018 to Friday, September 14, 2018
NIH Clinical Center (Building 10)
The NIH's annual Research Festival showcases intramural research and highlights the incredible diversity of science at the NIH. The event will include a wide variety of talks, posters, and events, including plentary talks and mini-symposia. The posters capture the astounding breadth of NIH research, while the the symposia highlight topics demanding exchange across disciplines to solve pressing health concerns, such as pain or obesity. The plenaries present world class research from the NIH's 22 Scientific Focus Areas.
A new feature at this year's Research Festival will be a hackathon, a concerted coding effort to address some software shortfall. The Festival will also feature demonstrations of the latest technologies in 3D printing and virtual reality.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018, 11:00 am
NIH Building 60, Lecture Hall
The NCCIH Integrative Medicine Research Lecture Series provides overviews of the current state of research and practice involving complementary health approaches and explores perspectives on the emerging discipline of integrative medicine. The next lecture in the series is "Nature Contact and Human Health: A Multimethod Approach" by Dr. Gregory N. Bratman, the Inaugural Holder of the Doug Walker Endowed Faculty Fellowship and Assistant Professor of Nature, Health, and Recreation at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington.
The work of Dr. Bratman takes place at the nexus of psychology, public health, and ecology. His research focuses on examining the ways that nature experience benefits mental health and developing a field called “psychological ecosystem services.” While nature experience has been shown to benefit human beings in a variety of ways, people worldwide are increasingly disconnected from nature as they spend up to 90 percent of their time indoors. Dr. Bratman’s topics will include the state of the science on nature in relation to mental health; approaches for measuring the impacts of nature experiences on mood, cognitive function, and emotion regulation; a theory on possible causal mechanisms; implications for urban planning and public policy; and a proposed agenda for future research. Dr. Gregory Bratman holds a Ph.D. in environment and resources from Stanford University, where he was a James and Nancy Kelso Fellow and a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellow.
The lecture also will be videocast at https://videocast.nih.gov.
Monday, September 24, 2018 to Tuesday, September 25, 2018 (register by September 9)
NIEHS Building 101, Rodbell Auditorium (111 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709)
Sequence analysis of extracellular DNA circulating in blood is an exciting development in clinical and experimental medicine liquid biopsy applications. Circulating, cell free DNA (ccfDNA) with its short half life is normally found in blood at low concentrations (ng/ml) when DNA of nuclear or mitochondrial origin is released after cellular breakdown. First described in the 1940's, ccfDNA has recently been coupled with targeted or genome-wide sequencing to emerge as a novel, non-invasive tool in disease diagnosis, staging and biomarker discovery. Liquid biopsies have gained much attention in a variety of clinical conditions such as cancer, maternal/fetal disorders, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and sepsis. New areas of utilization include molecular epidemiology, predictive toxicology and precision medicine. This NIEHS workshop explores applications and utilities of ccfDNA in research and lessons learned from the clinical setting while introducing its development as a potential means to investigate and predict similar disease outcomes in exposure biology and toxicology.
The NIEHS ccfDNA workshop committee invites all attendees to submit a poster related to their work with ccfDNA. The deadline for poster abstract submission is August 24, 2018. The deadline for meeting registration is September 9, 2018.
Thursday, September 27, 2018 to Friday, September 28, 2018 (register by September 10)
NIH Clinical Center (Building 10), Masur Auditorium and Lipsett Amphitheater
The Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute is hosting a two-day national symposiumthat will cover recent advances in the field of immunology. This event should be an exciting forum for discussion and debate on the current understanding of basic immunological mechanisms. The symposium will include sessions on lymphocyte development; lymphocyte biology; and signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms.
Abstracts for consideration as poster presentations are welcome and due by August 24. Registration is free, but seating is limited so be sure to register early!
Tuesday, October 2, 2018 to Wednesday, October 3, 2018 (registration required)
NIH Porter Neuroscience Building (Building 35), Room 610/620/620/640
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most lethal malignancies and is the fourth leading cause of death due to cancer in the United States with a median survival of less than six months. The purpose of the NCI Pancreatic Cancer Symposium is to provide an opportunity to bring together leaders and young investigators in the field, including basic researchers and clinical scientists from NIH and the extramural community, to exchange information and understand the latest advances in tumor biology, epidemiology, early detection and treatment of pancreatic cancer. The meeting will provide an exciting forum to foster collaborations and to address future challenges in advancing our commitment of improving disease outcome in patients with this recalcitrant cancer.
Abstracts for consideration as poster presentations are welcome and due by 11:59 p.m. on September 3, 2018.
Friday, October 12, 2018, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm (registration required)
NIH Porter Neuroscience Research Center (Building 35), Room 610
This one-day methodology seminar sponsored by the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research will showcase principles and techniques for prediction modeling from machine learning via specific case examples presented by scientists who are applying predictive algorithms to health-related behavioral and social sciences data. This seminar is intended for scientific program and review officers and other interested NIH staff, fellows, or intramural scientists engaged in evaluating research proposals or conducting research featuring predictive algorithms. Attendees will gain a broad understanding and appreciation for the capabilities of prediction modeling to advance research in health by complementing the more traditional and exclusive focus on explanation.
Thursday, October 25, 2018 to Friday, October 26, 2018 (registration required)
NIH Porter Neuroscience Center (Building 35), Room 640
The Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute is hosting a two-day national symposium. The program, chaired by Brid Ryan, Ph.D., M.P.H., will present recent advances in our understanding of the causes of cancer health disparities in the U.S. and globally, discuss disparities in cancer outcome and survivorship, and cover strategies to reduce these disparities, such as novel approaches to prevention, the use of immunotherapy, and precision medicine.
The deadline for registration is October 8, 2018. The deadline for abstract submission is September 25, 2018.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 (register by October 31)
NIH Natcher Conference Center (Building 45), Room E1/E2
RNA biology has emerged as one of the most influential areas in modern biology and biomedicine. The Center for Cancer Research (CCR) is home to a wide spectrum of work in RNA biology ranging from elucidating RNA biogenesis and structure, identifying functions for various classes of RNAs, establishing the role of RNA in disease, and exploring RNA-based and RNA-targeted therapies.
The goal of this fourth retreat hosted by the CCR Initiative in RNA Biology is to enhance interactions amongst PIs, fellows and staff working on RNA and to foster new collaborations and synergies amongst CCR laboratories interested in RNA biology. The workshop will feature our keynote speaker, Dr. Karla Neugebauer, Yale University and several talks selected from submitted abstracts. Fellows, staff scientists, trainees (including Leidos) are encouraged to submit an abstract for consideration. We also hope to catalyze interactions between basic and clinician researchers at this workshop.
The retreat is open to all NIH staff. Online registration is required for this meeting and is open until October 31. Abstracts must be submitted via the online abstract submission form by September 14.
