Every year we are responsible, as an Association, for organising the BIGGEST international conference event of the year on MND. The 23rd International Symposium on ALS/MND will return, after 16 years, to the windy city of Chicago from the 5-7 December this year.
This event is one of the most exciting events in the research calendar for those involved in MND research, and it promises to be full to the brim with exciting, cutting edge presentations. Scientists, clinicians and health care professionals across the globe come together every year for this stimulating event.
The deadline for abstract submission was back in May and we’ve been incredibly busy since then in compiling the abstracts for this year’s Symposium.
This year we received 419 high quality abstracts from across the globe, totalling 172,581 words! The Symposium Programme Committee, chaired by Prof. Wim Robberecht, had to review every single one of these in order to compile a stimulating and varied programme.
This year the Symposium will consist of a total of 96 oral presentations, with joint opening and closing plenary sessions on risk factors of the disease and the challenges of translating knowledge to treatment. There will be parallel scientific and clinical sessions exploring a wide variety of topics from target pathways, disease models and biomarkers, through to cognitive changes, multidisciplinary management and clinical trials. The final programme offers plenty of new ideas and key insights, particularly into the newly discovered C9ORF72 gene.
The Symposium will also see 251 poster presentations, and 55 work in progress poster presentations, showcased on a wide range of scientific and clinical themes that all sound incredibly interesting!
Me and Kelly have spent the past several weeks editing, formatting, proof reading and compiling all of these abstracts, which were sent to the publisher last week. The final document was 290 pages long and consisted of 150,096 words! The next stages of this process for us are to receive the proofs back from the publisher so that we can double, and triple, check them before they are ready for the Symposium. We will also be letting authors know their final poster numbers and timings so that they can get their presentations in order for the big event.
The full Program is available NOW on our website to give you an insight into the themes, and topics, that will be presented this year http://www.mndassociation.org/research/International+Symposium/Programme
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