Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

The "4th Ottawa International Conference on Neuromuscular Disease and Biology" will be held in Ottawa, ON Canada on Sept 7-9, 2016. The Conference will offer an outstanding program emphasizing recent breakthroughs in basic science research and clinical discoveries in neuromuscular disease (NMD). The Conference will feature over 40 Canadian and international speakers, with presentations and poster sessions, and is structured for scientists and clinicians. The Conference will highlight advances in all aspects of NMD research, including new methods to diagnose NMDs, the underlying biology of NMD and promising treatments for these devastating disorders. Trainees/students will be able to present their research in a poster format, and several top trainee abstracts will be selected for platform presentations. Conference benefits for patients, researchers and trainees include 1) networking opportunities to build research groups with the goal to accelerate innovative NMD research and treatment trials; 2) providing outstanding educational opportunities for the next generation of clinicians and scientists; and 3) highlighting Canadian NMD research internationally. The Conference builds upon the success of our three previous Ottawa NMD conferences (2007, 2010, 2015), and we anticipate 300-400 attendees, including scientists, physicians, students and patient advocacy group representatives.