Lymphatic Conference

This application is to request partial support of the inaugural NAVBO-LE&RN Lymphatic Conference that will take place at Northwestern Medical School in Chicago, Illinois on June 8-11, 2017. Research in lymphatic biology has experienced a dramatic growth within the last 10 years. This can be seen through the increase in the number of investigators, thanks to the emergence of a new generation of researchers, as well as through the increase in the number of investigators who, although working in other topics, have incorporated lymphatic-related questions into their interests. This growth is due, in part, to the identification of critical regulators of lymphatic growth and the availability of animal models, and to a better understanding of the functional roles of the lymphatic vasculature in health and disease. Lymphatic function has been primarily associated with lipid absorption, fluid/macromolecular homeostasis, and immune surveillance, and lymphatic vessel dysfunction has been associated with pathologic conditions such as lymphedema. However, recent work identified novel functional roles of the lymphatic vasculature in metabolism, obesity, inflammation, the regulation of salt storage in hypertension, heart disease, glaucoma and possibly even in some neurological disorders. Therefore, there is a dramatically increasing need for researchers working in a broad spectrum of normal and pathological lymphatic conditions. Along with the growth of the field and recognition of the public health importance of lymphatic diseases, there is a need for more frequent forums to exchange scientific progress and ideas in related topics that could bring together developmental biologists, cancer researchers, physiologists, biomedical engineers, cardiologists, neuroscientists and physicians. Such forums will help to promote the current progress in the identification and better characterization of lymphatic related disorders. Until now, the main lymphatic research conference was the one organized by the GRC every two years since 2004. Although a comparatively young GRC conference, attendance at the meeting has grown steadily since its inception and the number of applications for the last one in 2016, exceeded by 25 the maximum number of allowed participants (200). Accordingly, it has become apparent that there is a need to add a second major biennial lymphatic conference that can alternate with the established GRC. Therefore, this initial Lymphatic Conference will set the tone for those that will follow, as we expect that this series will also become a tradition in years to come. As seen in the proposed program, the selected speakers not only cover many of the major research topics, but will also put a special emphasis on the novel functional areas of lymphatic research, such as metabolism, neurological disorders, vision and cardiovascular diseases. It will also bring together basic and clinical scientists, as we will dedicate two sessions to discuss a variety of lymphatic-related pathological disorders. To make this conference broader and to foster interactions with researchers in other topics, an entire session will be devoted to emerging areas, such as stem cells, epigenetics and nanotechnology.