Originally published on May 28, 2014.
Cure SMA has been awarded a grant from The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Disease (NINDS) and the Office of Rare Disease Research at The National Center of Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) to support the 2014 SMA Research Group Meeting. We thank them for the fantastic support that helps bring together the SMA research community along with our families.
The SMA Research Group Meeting is the largest research conference in the world for SMA. It was held June 12, 13, 14 at the Gaylord National in National Harbor, MD. We had over 225 researchers that gave 110 updates on the latest breakthroughs in SMA research. Researchers were registered from 15 different countries, 70 different acacemic and government organizations, and 18 biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
Cure SMA hosts and organizes the SMA Research Group Meeting with the following goals:
• To enable open communication of early, unpublished scientific data, accelerating the pace of research
• To provide a forum to discuss timely topics in SMA openly with the entire research community
• To create a sense of community among SMA researchers, resulting in productive research partnerships
• To promote cross-disciplinary dialog among basic researchers, clinicians, and industry representatives
• To provide a venue to efficiently integrate new researchers and drug companies into the community
• To promote interaction between trainees and leaders in the field to build the future of the SMA research community
• To motivate SMA researchers by providing direct interaction with patients living with SMA
The research conference is held together with The Annual SMA Family Conference, which is the largest conference in the world for families affected by SMA and for medical professionals involved in providing support and care for SMA patients. Running the two conferences simultaneously gives the unique opportunity for SMA families, researchers, and clinicians to interact and meet each other.