The deadline to submit an abstract for short talk and poster presentation consideration has passed.  For any questions or issues, please email info@keystonesymposia.org.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) can cut short an adult life unexpectedly in its prime, and also cause debilitating chronic ill health later in life among an increasingly aging population. It is a significant cause of death worldwide, claiming the lives of 17.9 million annually. Emerging, new discoveries in the fields of epigenetics and epitranscriptomics have opened up refreshing horizons offering new biological perspectives and disease targets; the cross-cutting fields have elucidated modulatable nodal effectors, integrating upstream signals that convey common cellular pathways and mediate fundamental cell state changes in health and disease. For example, by targeting modulatable cell states, these new approaches promise to tackle CVD at its root cause, rather than only delaying disease progression.

Presently, there is a recognized core group of CVD epigenetic and epitranscriptomic researchers that focus primarily on myocardial cell types. This meeting aims to integrate this group, with investigators across cardiac and vascular fields, including researchers examining new systemic drivers that are emerging as key contributors of CVD pathophysiology, such as metabolism and inflammation. The program will cover gene expression control, cardiac cell states, diverse histone and nucleic acid modifications, and even their contribution to inter-cellular cross-talk, featuring an interdisciplinary groups of scientists that bring diverse perspectives based on different cellular, organelle or pathways of interest. The focus on underpinning epigenetic processes will make this symposium unique from other conferences. As the wider biological field of epigenetics is rapidly progressing, with ground-breaking discoveries exponentially increasing, this symposium will also serve as the platform to invite keynote speakers from outside CVD research, to bring fresh perspectives and techniques to the program and to the scientific community.

In the video below, meeting co-organizer Dr. Roger Foo talks about why you should attend this meeting: