Greetings!
Welcome to the 2024 Washington University Musculoskeletal Research Center Symposium. This is our 13th annual Symposium. Our objective is to provide an opportunity for musculoskeletal researchers to network and talk science, and to provide a platform for early-career faculty, trainees and staff from member labs to present their work. Please take advantage of our time together to interact with your fellow attendees, including those outside your “usual circle”, and to learn something new.
This year we have expanded our geographic range to welcome attendees from beyond Saint Louis, including the University of Missouri-Columbia (Mizzou), University of
Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Vanderbilt University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and Northeastern University.
We have an exciting, full-day program with some new twists. The oral presentations feature the 2023 Pilot & Feasibility Awardees, as well as 18 authors of top-rated abstracts who will present either 7-minute or 3-minute (poster teaser) talks. The Poster Session features 75 presenters, including 27 Poster Award Finalists. We have four invited speakers: Keynote Speaker, Prof Marjolein van der Meulen from Cornell, and Early-Stage Spotlight Speaker, Dr. Ha-Neui Kim from UAMS, as well as two career development speakers, Dr Jason Lim from Delaware and Corinne Decker from Ensoma, who are MRC alumni. Finally, we will hear from two Science SLAM! presenters during the reception.
Thanks to our abstract reviewers; each abstract was scored by three reviewers. Thank you to the organizing committee for putting together the program: Aaron Johnson, Naomi Dirckx, Gaurav Swarnkar, Isabel Mendendez and Deb Veis. In selecting presenters and poster finalists, we considered the abstract scores, as well as topic, lab and gender diversity. Lastly, a big “Thank You” to Kami McGhee for all her efforts in planning and organizing the meeting, from abstract submissions and reviews, to venue logistics, to assembling this program book.
I hope you enjoy the meeting.
Matt Silva