In January of 2013, scientists from both academia and the private sector sat down with the CNS Foundation team and advocacy leaders at our 2013 Scientific Workshop: The Best Next Steps to Advance the Field of Pediatric Neurology. Through an ambitious agenda, we identified barriers to progress and discussed innovative and practical ways to navigate these hurdles. With support from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), representatives from Harvard Medical School, Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute, University of California, Texas Children’s Hospital and other…
On July 15 & 16, 2010, CNS Foundation hosted a symposium in Washington D.C. that brought together policy makers, researchers, non-profit organizations, and industry to address the barriers to clinical trials and treatments for children affected by neurological conditions. The meeting, Accelerating Therapeutic Development for Pediatric Neurological Disorders: Establishing Clinical Centers of Excellence, had a primary goal of fully fleshing out the feasibility and details of creating a network of locations throughout the United States that would ultimately be able to coordinate, plan and…
On February 10-12, 2008, CNS Foundation, in collaboration with Texas Children’s Hospital, hosted The Pediatric Brain Injury Workshop: Plasticity and Regenerative Therapy at the Hotel ZaZa in Houston, Texas. Some of the top scientists and researchers will be in attendance from all over the nation. By setting the stage for multidisciplinary collaboration, we are giving scientists a format to make sure that our children are getting the science they need.
In September 2007, CNS and the UC Santa Barbara Neuroscience Research Institute launched the first annual Young Neuroscientists’ Workshop. This meeting series is intended to expose young neuroscientists to emerging thinking about childhood brain disorders, with the long-term aim of seeing more of these young investigators incorporate the study of these disorders into their career objectives.
This event sponsored by CNS Foundation brought 10 senior faculty members together with 25 junior scientists in Solvang, CA for four days of intensive scientific discovery and collaboration.
On February 28 through March 3rd, 2006, CNS Foundation co-hosted a scientific workshop in San Jose, California, entitled Neurotrophic Factors as Therapeutic Treatments for Pediatric Neurological Disorders: Moving the Field Forward. This meeting, held in collaboration with the A-T Children’s Project, focused some of the top researchers in the field of neurotrophin biology on new treatment strategies for special-needs children. Neurotrophins (pronounced neu-ro-tro-fins) are protein factors within the brain that promote the assemblage of brain cells into functional networks.
CNS Foundation’s 2005 Board of Directors Annual Retreat and Think Tank was held at the historic Bulfinch Building in Boston on the weekend of March 11-12, 2005, bringing together the members of the CNS Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board, and special guests. CNS Foundation board member Jeffrey D. Macklis, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School Center for Nervous System Repair in Boston, generously hosted the retreat, which was conducted, in part, at the renowned Ether Dome. The two-day event included scientific presentations, a tour of the MGH-HMS…
In collaboration with the A-T Children’s Project, CNS Foundation sponsored a three-day conference from June 15-18, 2004 in Tarrytown, New York. The objective of this meeting was to plan research projects needed to move neural stem cell therapy from laboratory animals to Phase I clinical trials in children within 2-3 years.
CNS Foundation hosted a panel discussion on how stem cell research could offer new avenues for recovery from pediatric brain injury and disease. Speakers provided examples through specific models of disease. The workshop was universally hailed as a success. While there was incredible optimism that scientists are on the cusp of an extraordinary breakthrough in their ability to treat childhood neurological disorders with stem cells, there was also a sense that much work must be done before victory can be declared in earnest. Participants left with the resolve to do whatever is necessary to…
Integral to CNS Foundation’s mission is the collaborative relationship between the parents and the scientists. The key role that the parents play is to present to the scientists the critical data that they have acquired by observing their children’s behavior. The goal is not only to highlight the sense of urgency we parents feel on a daily basis, but to also help determine goals and strategies for future research.
Meeting via teleconference in November of 2001, the parents and scientists of the CNS Foundation debated different strategies to move the science forward. Members agreed that a significant way the foundation can accelerate biomedical discovery and speed the translation of scientific insights into effective treatments and cures is to orchestrate collaboration among investigators. It became clear that by helping coordinate individual scientific efforts, the roadblocks to progress could be more readily overcome.