Focus of the Fifth Conference
The fifth Functional Genomics of Critical Illness and Injury symposium will assemble multidisciplinary acute and critical care specialists (e.g., intensivists from internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and anesthesiology), microbiologists, immunologists, cell biologists, molecular biologists, experts in high-throughput technologies, and computational scientists to discuss the application of functional genomic approaches to critical illness and injury. A key goal of this year’s meeting will be rigorous introspection. We invite a frank assessment of whether investigative teams within the critical illness and injury community have access to the requisite skill sets and tools required to use systems approaches to develop and standardize effective treatment approaches for injured and/or critically ill populations. We will evaluate best practices of current models that successfully bring together investigative teams based upon common interest and public health need.
The conference will feature cutting-edge scientific presentations on the first day and discussion-based, collaborative workshops on the second day. In keeping with emerging and evolving trends in biomedicine, scientific foci will include regulomics, physiomics, and analytical/computational tools. The workshop segment of the conference will provide a candid forum for needs evaluation and feasibility analyses of the following actions recommended by consensus of the attendees of the fourth Symposium:
- Determine the research needs of the U.S. adult and pediatric critical illness and injury communities, including those of pre-hospital and emergency room settings.
- Forge a collaborative infrastructure in the U.S. and partnerships with international research networks and groups.
- Incorporate community practitioners in the research process.
- Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of genome-wide association studies.
- Create the infrastructure to provide an acute and critical illness phenotype ontology.
In addition to featured speakers, poster sessions and a reception will allow one-on-one discussions between presenters and participants.