Conference on Control of Renal Function in Health and Disease - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The purpose of this proposal is to seek support for a travel award program for the American
Physiological Society (APS) conference entitled Control of Renal Function in Health and
Disease scheduled for June 23rd-29th, 2019 in Charlottesville, VA.
Interest in the control of renal function and renal hemodynamics has grown considerably over
the past couple decades as the incidences of hypertension and kidney injury in the U.S. have
ballooned. Thus, there is great need in the scientific community for meetings focused on the
mechanisms underlying the control of renal hemodynamics and hypertensive kidney injury. The
overall goal of the 2019 Control of Renal Function in Health and Disease conference is to bring
together basic scientists and clinician scientists to discuss new ideas about renal and
cardiovascular function and the mechanisms underlying kidney injury. As such, the conference
objectives are to: 1) gather a critical mass of expert basic and clinical researchers with interests
in the mechanisms underlying renal and cardiovascular disease and renal hemodynamics to
promote the exchange of ideas, develop scientific relationships, and to promote potential future
collaborations; 2) present largely unpublished data so that the "current state of the art" is
communicated; and, 3) promote the interest of early career investigators and trainees in
developing new studies into the roles of novel signaling mechanisms, inflammation,
hypertension, sex disparities, circadian influences and related issues that contribute to renal and
renal vascular dysfunction.
In order to achieve the conference objectives above, the organizing committee has developed a
meeting program that focuses on novel areas of renal function and disease including symposia
on the following topics: obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome; sex steroids and the kidney;
developmental programming of kidney disease; genetics, epigenetics and the kidney; and
immunology and the kidney and circadian biology of kidney function. Symposia will also cover
recent advances in the traditional areas of renal hemodynamics, acute kidney injury, chronic
kidney disease and podocytes, autacoids and the kidney, and hypertension and the kidney. In
order to promote the interest of trainees and early career investigators in the field and their
participation in the conference, we propose to administer an NIH-funded travel award program
for trainees and early career investigators.