2017 Conference Attendees!!

Thank you to everyone who attended this year's 10th anniversary International Conference on Neural Tube Defects.  It was a huge success, thanks to all of you!

And a special thanks to our conference organizers: Drs. Richard Finnell, Laura Mitchell, Philip Lupo, and John Wallingford.

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The Marcy Speer Award Winners for 2017

The Marcy Speer award is given out at each meeting of the International Neural Tube Defect Conference to the pre-and post-doctoral trainees whose presentation was ranked the best by a panel of distinguished scholars.   The competition is always intense, as all of the participants bring their finest work to the meeting.  This year there was a tie for the best presentation by a pre-doctoral student.  Ms. Amanda Baumholtz from Dr. Aimee Ryan’s laboratory at McGill University in Montreal and Ms. Micah Ross of Brigham Young University Provo, Utah ran away with the award.  Amanda’s work on Claudins and neural tube defects is about complete and she will be on the postdoctoral job market soon!  Ms. Ross works on redox potentials in embryos challenged by developmental toxicants.  Amanda and Micah have both attended the conference before.  A first-time attendee who impressed the judges enough to win the Speer Award for postdoctoral trainees was Dr. Jitao Zhang of the University of Maryland.  His presentation on measuring stiffness in embryonic tissues microscopically was extremely impressive!  Force matters in closing the neural tube. Congratulations to Jitao, Amanda and Micah, and really, to all of the trainees.  The efforts they put forth give us great hope that the future looks bright for the NTD research community.

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A big THANK YOU to our amazing sponsors...

Sponsors
 

We are grateful to the following for their generous sponsorship of the 10th International Conference on Neural Tube Defects.
 

  • NIH Institutes (NICHD, NINDS and NIEHS)**

  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health

  • Fibich and Associates PC

  • The Susan Wayne Strauss Charitable Foundation

  • Michael W. Kessler, Attorney at Law

  • Phillips & Paolicelli LLC, Waters & Kraus, Cooney & Conway, and the Thornton Law Firm

**Funding for this conference was made possible (in part) by NIH grant R13HD093414 (NIH Institutes: NICHD, NINDS and NIEHS). The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the NIH; nor does mention by trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

 

HOTEL DEADLINE is September 5

Please note that our HOTEL BLOCK deadline is September 5.  Our current room rate is $189 per day.  If you book your hotel room after September 5, you will have to contact the hotel directly and pay the $209 daily rate.  So DON’T DELAY!!!  Book your hotel room ASAP at this link: http://ntdconference.com/accomodations/   

NEW THIS YEAR: NEED A ROOMMATE??  If you want to keep hotel costs down, we now have a form you can fill out to find a conference roommate.  Please see the link below.  The sooner you add yourself to this roommate list, the sooner you can find one!!  Don’t delay.

https://goo.gl/forms/r0u90FNHnupYi4d22

 ** If you registered yourself for a roommate, click this link to find a match!!  Check back often as more people register themselves for a roommate, the list will update itself.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oFAwrpkneqNKtd6Nli-QElpa64el9M9JxpKQgzuSTr4/edit?usp=sharing

We hope to see you in October!!!
Jen

Now accepting ABSTRACTS!!!

We are now accepting abstracts for the 10th International Conference on Neural Tube Defects!!!  Submissions are limited to a single page, Word document, with 0.75-inch margins and 12-point font, and must include:

  • Title
  • Author(s) – presenting author in bold
  • Affiliation(s)
  • Summary of work to be presented
  • Contact information for the corresponding author, including email address
  • Research Category: Genomics of NTDs, Developmental Biology, Clinical Consequences of NTDs, Emerging Technology or Other
  • Presentation Category: Pre-doctoral Trainee Presentation; Post-doctoral Trainee Presentation
  • Preferred presentation format: platform, poster

Please do not include images, graphics, or references as part of your submission. They will be deleted from the abstract booklet.  Abstracts must be emailed as a WORD document to jgilmore@austin.utexas.edu by Saturday, August 12th.

Thanks,
Jen

Registration is NOW OPEN!!!

Thank you for your patience as we've been putting this conference together.  We are excited to announce that registration is now open for the 10th International Conference on Neural Tube Defects, to be held October 1-4, 2017, in Austin, TX.  This year’s focus will be on:

-       Genomics of NTDs-Efforts at Major Collaborations
-       Developmental Biology
-       Clinical Consequences of NTDs-Hydrocephalus
-       Emerging Technologies

REGISTRATION

Click here to register.  If you are a postdoctoral fellow or PhD candidate, please complete the trainee registration - $325*.  Otherwise, regular registration is $450*.

LODGING

The AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center is the host hotel for the International Conference on Neural Tube Defects.  The room rate is $189/night, plus applicable taxes and fees.  If you want to enjoy everything our city has to offer before the conference begins, we've arranged for a limited number of rooms to be available for check in starting as early as Friday, September 29.

We hope to see you here in Austin in October!

Rick Finnell
Laura Mitchell
Philip Lupo
John Wallingford
Your conference co-organizers

* Please note the increase in registration rates are to accommodate the rising costs of hosting this conference, and decreased funding from supporters.  We appreciate your understanding.