NINTH COOLEY'S ANEMIA SYMPOSIUM - OCTOBER 21, 2009 - OCTOBER 24, 2009

Thalpals please note these dates:  October 21, 2009 - October 24, 2009
Andy, I think you will love this one!!

Ninth Cooley's Anemia Symposium
Sponsored by the Cooley's Anemia Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences

Thanks to scientific advances, individuals with thalassemia—a group of genetic blood disorders which includes Cooley's Anemia—are now living into their 40's and 50's. Not only are individuals living longer, but their quality of life has increased. Scientifi c and clinical advancements have resulted in new iron-chelating drugs, early detection of organ failure, an understanding of adult complications associated with living with thalassemia (osteoporosis, heart failure, growth hormone defi ciency, pulmonary hypertension, and in fertility) and promising progress towards the ultimate magic bullet—a cure in the form of bone marrow and cord blood transplants, or gene therapy.
The symposium will integrate basic science and clinical research so that both scientists and clinicians can develop a mutual understanding of recent progress in thalassemia.

Scientific Organizing Committee:

Elliott Vichinsky, MD
Director, Hematology/Oncology
Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, CA
Ellis Neufeld, MD, PhD
Associate Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology
Children's Hospital Boston

Plenary Sessions on:

Iron Regulation and Metabolism
Gene Regulation and Therapy
Nutrition and Antioxidant Therapies
Iron Overload and Chelation Therapy
Iron Imaging
New Advances in Stem Cell
Transplantation
New Therapy For Hemoglobin F
Cardiac Dysfunction
Clinical Syndromes in Thalassemia and Disease Severity
The Adult Thalassemia Patient

Poster Abstracts and Travel Fellowships will be available for this meeting. Further information will be available shortly

Dissemination Material
Listen to the eBriefing from the last Cooley's symposium at www.nyas.org/Cooleys
Read publications from our previous Cooley's Symposia at www.nyas.org/CooleysAnnals

Hi Sharmin,

Would you believe that I just saw Bob Ficarra from CAF at the conference and made a point of meeting him and we had a long talk and he is so impressed by my passion and told me about this conference, and asked me to join CAF, and possibly more? Carpe Diem! Seize the moment people. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that when opportunity presents itself, you must take advantage.

Andy,

That is great!  I am so glad that you are there learning all of these wonderful things and making valuable connections. 

Sharmin

Whoa, That's a great news Andy,indeed Carpe Diem 

Zaini.

Below are some highlights from the eighth Cooley's Anemia Symposium held in 2005 - it's amazing how much we have achieved since then:

http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/main.asp?intSubsectionID=2707

Conference Highlights:

The toll from thalassemia on child/infant health and mortality is comparable in some regions of the world to more well-known diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria.
Chelation therapy (removing excess iron from the blood) could save even more lives when iron-scavenging drugs are used in combination.
Non-invasive iron measurements such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and magnetic susceptometry (SQUID) are proving accurate and capable of quantifying iron in organs not well-served by biopsy.
Stem cell transplantations among matched donor-recipient pairs are curing more thalassemia patients than ever. The transplant success rate is steadily increasing for recipients of bone marrow stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells from unrelated donors.
Gene therapy can cure thalassemia in mice, and human Phase I safety trials are planned to begin during the next year.
Researchers are learning more about how to revive the production of fetal hemoglobin, and this knowledge is leading to the development of new drugs.
Thalassemia patients are surviving into their 50's. Pediatric centers need to retool their services for adult thalassemia patients.
"Tremendous strides have been made in the past decade that are significantly improving patient outcomes," said Elliott Vichinsky, symposium co-organizer and director of hematology and oncology at the Children's Hospital and Research Center at Oakland, California. "At the same time, we've made great progress toward eventually curing this disease."

Hey guys,

I am in the process of getting information on how to register for this event, and whether we can indeed attend.  I will post once I get the info.  I know that it is a long time away, but I am very excited about this one! 

Sharmin

So i am Sharmin, i will  be really great if you can attend, good luck

manal

Thanks Manal,

Registration is not yet available.  I will check back with them at a later time and let you all know what I find out. 

Sharmin

Hello Everyone,

I did NOT see the eBriefing from Ninth Cooley's Anemia posted anywhere on the thalpal site, so am posting it for reference.

I think NYAS removes the eBriefings after a while as I see some of the links in this post earlier do NOT work or may be that was because the eBriefing was posted.

http://www.nyas.org/Publications/EBriefings/Detail.aspx?cid=8e021d27-223a-49f9-85f8-dc5c19d291af

Please use the Next  button at the bottom of the page when you bring up the eBriefing on the nyas site, as there is a lot of content and the pages are paginated.

Thanx ,Narendar  ... for sharing such an important update/link .. there's alot of info regarding many issues ....