'Visionary Genomics' focus of ARVO 2011

Fort Lauderdale, FL-For many vision researchers, traveling to Fort Lauderdale for the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology is a tradition of spring. If visiting the southeastern Florida coast is a big part of the reason you go, however, you had best make plans to attend this year or next. Starting in 2013, the meeting will be moving to new locales.

Citing many factors, such as outgrowing the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center, rising hotel prices as more luxury resorts are built in the area, and lack of accommodations within walking distance (which necessitates expensive shuttle services), ARVO officials are saying goodbye to Fort Lauderdale.

In 2013, the meeting will be held in Seattle, and in 2014, it will be Orlando. Denver will host in 2015 and Seattle again in 2016.

Before the meeting

ARVO Education Courses will be held Saturday, April 30. These courses require separate registration. They are:

8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: Thyroid Associated Eye Disease: Multidisciplinary Update of Pathogenesis, New Directions for Collaborative Research

8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Designing and Managing Clinical Trials in Eye Research

8:30 a.m. to noon: Cell Death and Inflammation in Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration

1 to 4:30 p.m.: Early Stage Startup Companies: How to Reach the Next Milestone, as well as Statistical Analysis of Correlated Eye Data

ARVO/Alcon keynote session

The ARVO/Alcon keynote session will be held Sunday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. James Lupski, MD, PhD, vice chair and Cullen Professor, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, will speak. Dr. Lupski has spent more than 20 years researching Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (from which he suffers).

He and his colleagues are best known for showing that whole-genome sequencing technology can allow researchers to isolate relevant disease information from a single individual's genome, a finding that holds great implications for personalized medicine.