Craniofacial Development and Disease: From Molecules to Patients

An important goal of craniofacial research is to understand the causes underlying craniofacial malformations and to develop diagnostics and therapies for these disorders. In-depth, interdisciplinary understanding of developmental and disease processes is an essential foundation for the field. Basic science insights will improve knowledge about the mechanisms underlying craniofacial morphogenesis, and translation of these findings will improve the clinical management of developmental disorders of the head and face.

The scientific program for this Conference will highlight recent advances in our knowledge of the cellular events and molecular switches that control tissue patterning as well as the morphogenetic processes that shape craniofacial tissues and organs. The Conference will delve into the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that control the specification of craniofacial cell populations and tissue architecture and the functional output and the evolutionary changes in gene networks. This will be accompanied by discussions about how these processes drive tissue diversity, and how distinctive features of the vertebrate head evolved. There will be invited presentations by leading researchers in craniofacial morphogenesis, and the meeting will also feature sessions on the functional genomics of craniofacial syndromes, development of animal models and the application of tissue engineering in regeneration and repair.

To foster stimulating discussions and productive collaborations across different fields, the Conference will be attended by researchers who have diverse expertise. The Conference will also provide unique opportunities for junior investigators and graduate students to present their work, either in poster format or as a short talk selected from submitted abstracts. The collegial atmosphere of the main Conference and the Research Seminar, and the informal setting of poster sessions and platform presentation, will facilitate personal interactions and sharing of knowledge, and will help to identify future directions in basic and clinical research to push forward our understanding of craniofacial morphogenesis and regeneration.