This conference has been CANCELLED. Immunity in Early Life: From the Maternal to the Microbial Environment (Z4) is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Jun 07 - 11, 2020 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Description: The immune system is crucial for host defense from infection and malignancy, impacts nearly all of host physiology and when misdirected causes allergic and autoimmune disease. Recently, it has become increasingly clear that early life is a key period during which host genetics, developmental programs and the environment (from infection to vaccination to microbiome etc.) shape the immune system, the imprint of which is carried forward through childhood into adult life. Yet, this early life period represents not only a window of vulnerability but of opportunity, i.e. targeted interventions could provide lifelong benefit. This Keystone Symposium will examine Early Life Immunity, bringing together experts from a diverse range of disciplines who together will present a tapestry of extant knowledge and insights, provide a more comprehensive understanding of immune ontogeny and illuminate areas of uncertainty where further study is most needed. Given this crucial early life period extends to the period before birth, joining the Early Life Immunity Symposium with the Maternal-Fetal Crosstalk Symposium emphasizes the strong overlap and interdependence of fetal and neonatal with maternal immunity; the joint sessions will provide the unique opportunity to cross-fertilize pre- and postnatal immunity. We expect to address the following Specific Aims: • Delineate the precise mechanistic role of early life immunity in health vs. disease • Highlight the role of the microbiome in early life immune ontogeny • Develop strong inquisitive platforms at the interphase of maternal and fetal as well as neonatal and infant immunity. Additional details will be posted as soon as they are available.

This Conference has been CANCELLED. Maternal-Fetal Crosstalk (Z3) is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from June 07 - 11, 2020 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Description: An interwoven array of physiological changes required for sustained growth and protection of the developing fetus occurs during pregnancy. Despite its necessity for species survival, many important aspects of how pregnancy is maintained are still undefined and reproductive biology remains an understudied area of biomedical research. This includes knowledge gaps pertaining to how pregnancy duration and birth timing are regulated, basic questions on how the placenta develops and functions, and on symbiotic interactions between genetically foreign maternal and fetal tissues with commensal microbes that exist at the maternal-fetal interface. With these gaps in knowledge unresolved, it is not surprising that pregnancy complications remain the leading cause of infant and childhood mortality. The primary goal of this meeting on maternal-fetal crosstalk is to bring together scientists and trainees with specialized expertise in unique aspects of pregnancy to accelerate filling these important knowledge gaps. Emerging and controversial aspects of pregnancy physiology and pathogenesis will be discussed in the collegial spirit that is unique to Keystone meetings. Given the direct links between biological and immunological mechanisms underlying the maintenance of pregnancy and the health of infants and children, we are in full agreement with the Keystone board to have this meeting run concurrently with the meeting on early life immunity (Chris Wilson, lead organizer) with two shared sessions on maternal-fetal immunological tolerance and how primary colonization of offspring influences development. Additional details will be posted as soon as they are available.

This Conference has been CANCELLED. Cellular Pathways Driving Neurodegeneration and Future Therapeutics (Z6) is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Jun 19 - 23, 2020 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Description: Neurodegenerative diseases remain one of the main concerns for aging populations across the world. Elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying these diseases thus remains a priority for developing effective therapeutics to combat them. Recent genetic studies linked to these diseases have pointed to several key cellular organelles and pathways, including defective synaptic function, endolysosomal and mitochondrial dysfunction as key players in driving neurodegeneration. The goal of this meeting is to bring together fundamental basic scientists who are experts in these areas of cell biology and researchers with disease focus, as well as scientists investigating therapeutic strategies for neurodegeneration. By combining these different fields of expertise, this conference will help facilitate cross-fertilization, in-depth interactions and stimulate insightful discussions on disease pathogenesis and strategies for advancing drug development for neurodegenerative disorders. Additional details will be posted as soon as they are available.

This Conference has been CANCELLED. Neuro-Immune Interactions in the Central Nervous System (Z5) is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Jun 19 - 23, 2020 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Description: This conference aims to assemble leading geneticists, neuroscientists, and immunologists in an effort to explore important questions regarding the role of the immune system in the central nervous system during both health and disease. The goals of this meeting are the following:  • Bring together different disciplines to investigate fundamental topics of neuroimmunology, such as immune control of CNS development, neuronal connectivity, myelination, circulation, as well as the role of the immune system in autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases of the CNS.  • Focus on the applications of emerging technologies to questions in neuroimmunology, such as -omics technologies, system biology and imaging.  • Foster collaborations between immunologists, neuroscientists, and geneticists.  • Encourage collaborations between academia and industry for the development of new avenues of intervention for multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases  The anticipated outcomes of this meeting will include an increased awareness of the importance of the interplay between the immune system and the nervous system, the dissemination of the most up to date information in neuroimmunology, the application of new technologies to thus far intractable questions in neuroimmunology, and increased cross-discipline collaborations. This meeting will be held conjointly with the Keystone Meeting on Neurodegeneration; this combination will be beneficial in that it will emphasize the crossover between neurodegeneration and neuroimmunology. As neuroimmunology is a recently reinvigorated field this meeting will provide a critical opportunity to foster cross-disciplinary thinking. Additional details will be posted as soon as they are available.

2020 National Nurse Practitioner Symposium is organized by the National Nurse Practitioner Symposium. The session is held from Jul 09 - 12, 2020 at Keystone Conference Center, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Pre-symposium day July 8, 2020 Rocky Mountain Retreat July 7-8, 2020 CE/CME Hour Credit Information: A maximum of 45.0 CE/CME hours can be earned by attending the standard AND optional sessions. Final CE/CME hours to be awarded are determined based on the final schedule and sessions attended. These hours will be reflected on your individualized certificate of completion, which is available online after completion of evaluations for all sessions attended. One CE/CME hour is equivalent to 60 minutes of educational instruction. Educational sessions designated with Rx contain pharmacology content. A maximum of 24.125 CE/CME hours can be earned in sessions with pharmacology content by attending the applicable standard AND optional sessions. Standard Session CE/CME Hours: • Thursday: 5.5 hours for Educational Sessions A, KN (Keynote), B, C • Friday: 6.25 hours for Educational Sessions D, E, F, G, H and .5 hour for Poster Session for a total of 6.75 hours • Saturday: 5.5 hours for Educational Sessions L, M, N, O and .5 hour for each Poster Session for a total of 6.5 hours • Sunday: 2.5 hours for Educational Sessions P, Q, 4.0 hours for Educational Seminar R and .5 hour for Poster Session for a maximum total of 6.0 hours Optional CE/CME Hours: • Tuesday/Wednesday: 9.5 hours for Rocky Mountain Retreat Pre 1 (attendance required both days) • Wednesday: 1.5 hours for Pre-Symposium Session Pre 2 or Pre 3, 2.0 hours for Pre-Symposium Session Pre 4* or Pre 5, 1.0 hour for Pre-Symposium Session Pre 6, Pre 7 or Pre 8, 1.0 hour for Pre-Symposium Session Pre 9, Pre 10 or Pre 11 and 1.5 hours for Pre-Symposium Dinner Session Pre 12 *ANCC provided by Nurse Practitioner Healthcare Foundation for Pre 4 • Friday: 1.5 hours for CIC (Challenges in Care Panel), 2.5 hours for Workshops, and 1.5 hours for Dinner Session J1 • Saturday: 2.5 hours for Workshops and 1.0 hour for Special Feature Session SF2 ADDITIONAL PARTICIPANT BENEFIT – Optional Enduring Materials CE/CME Hours: • Up to 10.0 CE/CME hours will be offered online post-symposium, complimentary to all registrants. Enduring Materials CE/CME hours are in addition to the 45.0 CE/CME hours offered by attending the standard AND optional sessions in person. Registrants will be notified after the symposium when online access to Enduring Materials is available. A separate CE Certificate of Completion will be issued for the Enduring Materials portion of CE/CME hours. Continuing Education Accreditation Statements AANP Credit: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation Standards of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) through the joint providership of AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare and National Nurse Practitioner Symposium. AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare is accredited by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners as an approved provider of nurse practitioner continuing education. Provider number: 030803 AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare designates this live activity for a maximum of 45.00 contact hours. This live activity is for 45.00 contact hour(s) which includes 24.125 hour(s) of pharmacology. Activity ID # 22024 This activity was planned in accordance with AANP CE Standards and Policies and AANP Commercial Support. ANCC Credit: AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare designates this live activity for a maximum of 45.00 contact hours. The activity is awarded 45.00 contact hours. This activity is jointly provided by AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare and National Nurse Practitioner Symposium. ACCME Credit: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare and National Nurse Practitioner Symposium. AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. AKH Inc., Advancing Knowledge in Healthcare designates this live activity for a maximum of 45.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Symposium Description: This multi-day Symposium provides a forum for discussing common matters related to the care of all age groups in a variety of healthcare settings. This year’s Symposium will address current trends and issues confronting providers across the country. The Objectives of the Symposium are to: • Measure self-reported knowledge gained on selected clinical topics in primary and acute care • Identify current approaches to client care management which affect your patient population • Reflect upon ideas and experiences gained from other professionals involved in the delivery of patient care, healthcare policy, entrepreneurial ventures, research activities, and the future of healthcare • Evaluate possible changes to your current practice methods and barriers to achieving those changes Topics: • Allergies • Anxiety • Arthritis • Business Practice • Cardiology • Contraception • Dermatology • Diagnostics • Endocrinology • Gastroenterology • Genomics • Geriatrics • Gynecology • Hematology • Imaging • Infectious Disease • Legislation • Mental Health • Neurology • Nutrition • Obesity • Oncology • Orthopedics • Pain • Pediatrics • Pharmacology • Pulmonary • Radiology • Self-Care • Sleep Disorders • Technology  • Trauma  • Wound Care  Workshops: • COPD and Asthma • Dermatology Procedures for Primary Care • Everything You Need to Know About IUDs and More • New Imaging, New Criteria, Radiology Changes • Orthopedic Exam: Extremities • Orthopedic Exam: Spine • Suturing Skills: Beginning to Advanced Tracks: • Acute Care • Adult/Geriatric • Dermatology • Pediatric • Professional Development • Women’s Health Note: Save $25 by Registering Online.

Harnessing the Microbiome for Disease Prevention and Therapy is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Jan 17 - 21, 2021 at Keystone Conference Center, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Course Description: Our understanding of the microbiome is advancing rapidly, and continues to productively move through the discovery phase, with numerous correlations being established between specific commensal microbes or microbiota compositions and a wide range of diseases that includes infections, inflammatory conditions, metabolic disease, autoimmunity and neurologic syndromes. The initial discovery of these potentially important correlations has led many laboratories around the world to probe the molecular mechanisms that form the causal link between specific commensal microbes and disease development, progression and resolution. Although there have been great advances, culturing many of the prevalent and metabolically active obligate anaerobic commensals remains a challenge. Exciting advances, however, are emerging from laboratories developing tools to genetically manipulate key commensal organisms, facilitating experimental studies that are identifying the small, bioactive molecules they produce, some of which have therapeutic potential. Studies of the impact of bacteriophage on the microbiota also suggest that they may have therapeutic potential. This Keystone conference will focus on recent advances that demonstrate, at the cellular and molecular level, the impact of the microbiota and its products on disease susceptibility/resistance, with an emphasis on microbial and host metabolism, inter-microbial interactions and the amelioration of diseases.  Additional details will be posted as soon as information is available.

The Microbiome: From Mother to Child is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Jan 17 - 21, 2021 at Keystone Conference Center, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Course Description: Early events in microbial colonization have a profound effect on physiology and immune education in the gut, thereby impacting disease susceptibility and infant health outcomes, yet we know remarkably little about the natural history of how the microbiome forms in children. However, recent research is connecting the importance of mother to child microbial transmission on establishment of the infant microbiome, as well as the essential role of the microbiome in health outcomes for the developing child. Therefore, this conference will focus on the importance of the microbiome to maternal-child health. This conference will cover topics such as microbiome and pregnancy outcomes, the development of the infant gut microbiota, the impact of the mother and infant microbiome on neurodevelopment and the relationship between nutrition, breast milk composition and infant gut microbiome. Overall, this conference attempts to explore the role of the microbiome from pre-pregnancy, throughout pregnancy, and in the infants, and evaluate the impact of nutrition, stress and other factors on these microbiomes and ultimately on infant development, including neurodevelopment and metabolic health. By assembling such a diverse group of scientists who usually attend different meetings (either focused on women's health or on infant health), this conference will provide a forum for developing engaged discussions and collaborations that will help move the field forward. Further, attendees will be exposed to a breadth of science unassembled to date. In addition, as this field is still in its infancy, many questions remain, such as the existence of an in-utero microbiome and this conference will include a healthy debate between two scientists with opposite view on the issue.  Additional details will be posted as soon as information is available.

Emerging Cell Therapies: Realizing the Vision of NextGen Cell Therapeutics is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Jan 24 - 28, 2021 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America Description: Cellular therapeutics are poised to be a next pillar of medicine along with small molecules and biologics. These living drugs have a unique capacity for more complex decision-making and therapeutic responses, potentially alleviating the need for chronic treatment. Next-generation cell therapies will need to adapt and respond to disease progression, essentially functioning as microscopic “physicians” capable of sensing, diagnosing, and eradicating disease via multifaceted mechanisms that are difficult to resist yet similar to our natural immune system.  Advances in engineered T cell therapeutics are being FDA approved and are now transforming treatment plans for cancers that previously had few therapeutic options. While there have been unprecedented complete responses in a subset of hematological malignancies, the current therapies can show significant toxicity and on the other hand show a lack of efficacy in solid tumors. Beyond cancer, engineered cell therapies could have significant impact in the treatment of autoimmunity, metabolic disorders and in regenerative medicine. This conference will therefore cover next-generation cellular engineering approaches designed to tackle refractory diseases such as solid tumors, while also addressing the higher safety requirements for diseases beyond late-stage metastatic cancers. This conference brings together clinically minded cell therapists, synthetic biologists, genome and protein engineers, systems biologists, and immunologists; this combined expertise is essential to establish cells as a safe and effective therapeutic strategy across a range of diseases. Smart cellular therapeutics of the future must be easily customizable, have intrinsic control systems to prevent toxicity, and be able to overcome rapidly evolving mechanisms preventing disease resolution; this conference aims to address these topics by convening global experts across a range of relevant disciplines. Additional details will be posted as soon as information is available.

Cardiac Development, Repair and Disease Modeling is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Feb 01 - 04, 2021 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Description: Significant advances in recent years in mechanistic understanding of cardiac development, function, and degeneration have stimulated interest in identifying novel therapeutic agents that may help treat children and adult patients with cardiovascular diseases. However, therapies developed in cell and animal models rarely translate well to human patients.  The goals of this conference are to advance our understanding of heart formation and homeostatic function and how derangement in these processes lead to diseases and organ dysfunction. Because human cardiovascular tissue is difficult to obtain for experimental perturbation this conference will address the use of a spectrum of cells and engineered tissue models as well as small and large animal models of disease. We anticipate that bringing together scientists with diverse research backgrounds who employ different tools and technologies to address mechanisms of cardiomyocyte and vascular dysfunction will result in new approaches to uncovering cardiovascular biology. Presentations will showcase innovative, molecularly targeted, strategies to treat both rare and common cardiovascular diseases.  Additional details will be posted as soon as information is available.

Organoids as Tools for Fundamental Discovery and Translation is organized by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology and will be held from Feb 07 - 11, 2021 at Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, United States of America. Course Description: Organoids are complex three-dimensional in vitro organ-like model systems. Organoids can be derived from pluripotent stem cells or primary donor tissue and have been used to address fundamental questions about development, stem cell biology and organ regeneration. Human organoids have highlighted significant unknowns in human biology and have invigorated new exploration into the cellular makeup of human organs during development, in the adult and during disease. Efforts to improve complexity in organoid systems, and to make organoid systems more robust, reproducible and controlled have prompted efforts to benchmark in vitro organoid systems against their in vivo counterparts, and efforts to control organoid systems through bioengineering approaches. The goals of this symposium are to highlight recent and emerging advances that implement organoids as tools to move several areas of biology forward, including improving complexity and maturation, high content drug screening, disease modeling, and understanding development and evolution. We anticipate that attendees will take away from this meeting new scientific knowledge, new methods and new technical capabilities. Moreover, given that the implementation of organoids in basic discovery and translational research spans a wide range of disciplines, it is likely that this meeting will bring together a diverse audience fostering novel cross-disciplinary interactions. Additional details will be posted as soon as information is available.