Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Conference 2016

The 2016 edition of the Basic Cardiovascular Sciences (BCVS) Scientific Sessions was held from July 18 to July 21 in beautiful (and hot!) Phoenix, Arizona. This year’s program was put together by Program Co-chairs Raj Kishore (Temple University), Jay Zhang (University of Alabama), and Maria Kontaridis (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center). The meeting attracted ≈600 attendees representing 23 countries. Around 370 abstracts were submitted and presented at the conference. Invited speakers represented institutions from the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin/South America, and Saudi Arabia. Meeting opened with remarks from Dr Steven Houser, President of American Heart Association, highlighting American Heart Association’s mission to support basic sciences and discovery research. One of the highlights of the meeting was a keynote lecture delivered by Nobel Laureate Dr Brian K. Kobilka (Stanford University) on the opening day (Figure 1). Dr Kobilka’s talk focused on providing structural and mechanistic insights into G-protein–coupled receptor signaling and its implications for drug discovery. He emphasized the physiological role of G-protein–coupled receptors’ signaling, and his hope that a better understanding of G-protein– coupled receptor structure and function will eventually lead toward development of efficient drugs for a variety of diseases. Dr Kobilka’s research ethics and his love for science as a whole were a treat to watch and an inspiration for all the young fellows at the conference. The quality of science presented at the meeting was incredible, with 15 sessions focused at highlighting research pathways toward development of cardiovascular therapeutics. Each day sessions were focused on a broad array of topics that included systems biology, genetics/genomics, cardiac signaling, cardiac fibrosis and remodeling, cardiac regeneration, cell death and aging, cardiac development and congenital disease, tissue engineering, inducible pluripotent stem cells, cardiac cell therapy, and exosomes. The seminars were then followed by poster presentations at the end of each day, highlighting new and unpublished scientific advances (Figure 2). Dr Steven Houser, President of the American Heart Association, presented interesting work about acute exposure of isoproterenol resulted in a reversible myocyte injury without cardiac regeneration. Dr Jefferey Molkentin from Cincinnati’s children hospital presented about a myofilament tension model predicting hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathies in mice and further reported that this model could also predict human cardiac phenotypes from data generated while using induced pluripotent stemcell–derived human myocytes from familial cardiomyopathy patients. This tension-based model will have potential to drive pharmacological treatment options for patients with cardiomyopathy-associated disorders. Dr Anthony Rosenzweig (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) presented his work about cardiac microRNA-222, which was found to be upregulated in exercise models and induces cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and proliferation through © 2016 American Heart Association, Inc.