Welcome to the SMA Research Day!
Dear Colleague,
On behalf of the steering committee, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the first SMA Research Day, organized and funded by Biogen, and taking place on Tuesday the 17th of September before the official opening ceremony of the 13th European Paediatric Neurology Society (EPNS) Congress.
Our half-day meeting will be held at the Hotel Caravel Divani in Athens, Greece – cradle of Western civilization, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, and centre for the arts, learning, and philosophy – we could not have a more appropriate location for this first international SMA Research Day.
The event is intended to bring together independent and Biogen-sponsored researchers and principal investigators from around the globe, along with Biogen’s clinical development team, to connect, to discuss the broad spectrum of leading research worldwide and future research trends, and to identify unmet needs in the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. Attendees will have the opportunity not only to network with peers working on SMA, to share and discuss findings and ideas, but also to forge new collaborations and contribute to the definition of Biogen’s strategy to further refine the treatments for SMA patients.
In a highly interactive format, the afternoon’s meeting will open with presentations by our steering committee, Professor Eugenio Mercuri, Professor Francesco Muntoni, Professor Eduardo Tizzano and myself.
This will be followed by a panel discussion on interesting and key abstracts selected from those submitted for this meeting by the invited researchers. Following a networking poster session, we will take a deep dive into some key topics including the basic science of SMA, including genetics; newborn screening; current standards of care worldwide; real-world evidence on the current unmet needs in this disease.
I am very much looking forward to welcoming you to Athens for what promises to be an engaging and inspiring event.
On behalf of the steering committee, and with warm regards,
Professor Dimitrios I. Zafeiriou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Hippokratio General Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece