DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Partial support is requested for the 2009 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms, to be held February 15-20, 2008 at Il Ciocco, Braga, Italy. This is the fourth Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms. The meeting convenes biannually, with past meeting held in 2003, 2005, and 2007. These meetings provide a venue for international scientific discourse on the mechanisms that underlie disturbances in cardiac rhythm and lethal arrhythmias, and the novel approaches to therapy and prevention. The GRC meetings have profoundly affected our scientific community by rendering it unusually collaborative and interactive. They draw participation from every aspect of our community, from graduate students and postdoctoral fellows through to senior faculty, with participation both national and international, and from academia and industry, to successfully address major issues in the fight against sudden cardiac death. The overall score of the previous conference held in 2007 was 1.2 on a scale of 1 (best) to 5 (worst). We are extremely pleased with the outstanding ratings by the participants of the 2007 GRC on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms, and we will work hard to maintain and even surpass the quality of the preceding meeting. The proposed 2009 Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms will focus on both basic science and clinically relevant key scientific topics. The meeting will allow unique opportunities to bring together groups of outstanding investigators, experts in various relevant fields, including molecular biology, molecular genetics, cellular electrophysiology, biophysics, imaging, biomedical engineering, mathematics, and clinical cardiology to interact and share ideas about the underlying mechanisms of complex life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias. The participants of the 2007 conference expressed their desire to steer the 2009 conference towards the clinical translation of cardiac arrhythmia mechanisms research. Accordingly, the Theme of our 2009 GRC is Translational Aspects of Cardiac Arrhythmias Research. The selection of proposed topics as well as speakers and discussion leaders reflects this emphasis. The organization of each session ensures that the sequence of speakers will lead the audience through what is known about a given subject at the level of the gene, the protein, the cell, the organ, and the organism in a systematic and didactic way, culminating with a presentation by a clinician/scientist that integrates and translates the presented topics into clinical research and practice. The presentations will define and analyze the latest and most important information on arrhythmia mechanisms and how these could result in novel antiarrhythmia therapies and prevention. We intend to invite the top experts and young promising investigators in their respective fields to this forum, where they will present and together discuss the most exciting new contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of cardiac rhythm disturbances. Specific attention will be paid to increasing the participation of young investigators and well as women and minority researchers. This proposal outlines novel approaches to increasing the informal interaction between established and young investigators. The proposed preliminary program will also target both established and young female investigators.

Cardiac arrhythmias are major causes of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. However, despite many years of research, understanding the mechanisms that underlie complex arrhythmias remains elusive, hampering development of improved therapies. The 2009 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms, to be held February 15-20, 2008 at Il Ciocco, Braga, Italy, will provide a venue for international scientific discourse on the new discoveries of the mechanisms that underlie disturbances in cardiac rhythm and lethal arrhythmias, and the novel approaches to therapy and prevention.