This proposal seeks partial support for an international symposium on "New Directions in Biology and Disease of Skeletal Muscle," to be held May 5 to May 8, 2010 at the Westin Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The Muscular Dystrophy Care Act was passed into law in 2001 with reauthorization in 2008. One of the goals of this act was to promote interaction among basic researchers, clinician and translational scientists to drive therapeutic development and progress to treat the muscular dystrophies. In response, we organized the "New Directions" series of meetings. This is the fourth meeting of this series;prior meetings were in 2004, 2006 and 2008. Muscle degeneration is hallmark of the muscular dystrophies and myopathies, and the diseases arise from genetic defects. There is presently no cure for these disorders, and the cost of care and loss of quality of life is substantial. The first meeting in this "New Directions" series was attended by clinicians and scientists and covered pathogenesis and treatment-oriented research. A number of collaborations developed, and importantly, this meeting established groundwork that has directed clinical trial design. The third "New Directions" meeting was held in 2008 in New Orleans. This meeting grew substantially in size and received very positive feedback with strong encouragement to continue the series. The New Orleans meeting emphasized key findings suitable for translational efforts. Notably, the organizers solicited the participation of representatives from the pharmaceutical industry to discuss target identification, high throughput screens and implementation and conduct of clinical trials. We have now planned the fourth installment of the "New Directions" meeting for Ottawa in 2010. This venue has been selected because we are combining the New Directions meeting with the Ottawa Neuromuscular Conference, reflecting the large group of neuromuscular researchers in Canada and their participation in the prior New Directions meetings. Therefore, this meeting represents a combined meeting, and we anticipate a similarly sized meeting to the New Orleans New Directions meeting (300 participants). This meeting marks the progress in the field and the evolution from basic to translational science. In this meeting, we will focus on target identification for multiple forms of muscle disease that may not be treated with current approaches. Topics to be discussed include pathological disease mechanisms for multiple forms of muscular dystrophy, signaling, muscle stem cells and muscle regeneration. The meeting will be held over 3.5 days with approximately 40 presentations. Two poster sessions will be included. Approximately 25% of the speakers will be determined by selection from submitted abstracts as to allow the inclusion of the most timely and cutting edge findings relevant to the field of the muscle degenerative diseases and to be inclusive of young investigators and trainees. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This proposal seeks partial support for an international symposium on "New Directions in Biology and Disease of Skeletal Muscle," to be held May 5 to May 8, 2010 at the Westin Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. This meeting is highly unique in its focus on muscle diseases and therapy. The meeting brings together researchers and clinicians to identify new targets for therapy to treat the muscle degenerative diseases including the muscular dystrophies and myopathies.