5th Annual Traumatic Brain Injury Conference to Feature North America's Leading TBI Researchers and Latest Research - April 15, 16, 2015, Washington DC

    WASHINGTON, DC, December 18, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The 5th Annual Traumatic Brain Injury Conference (www.tbiconference.com), to be held April 15 and 16, 2015 in Washington, today officially released its preliminary agenda of more than 30 confirmed presenters and presentation topics.

The 2015 TBI conference will feature leading researchers presenting on groundbreaking research in areas such as the long-term impact of concussions, pediatric TBI, neurodegenerative diseases resulting from TBI, preclinical and clinical-stage therapies, clinical trial design, biomarkers for TBI, and advanced imaging.

The two-day conference, to be held in downtown Washington, is an opportunity for researchers and policy makers to hear the most up-to-date information on TBI research and network with many leading researchers in one central conference located in the nation's capital. In addition, for the first time, there will be a TBI Day for survivors, families of survivors, case managers, and other supporters on April 14, the day before the conference starts. Further details regarding TBI Day can be found at www.tbiconference.com.

"Now in its fifth year, the Annual TBI Conference has become an important date on the national TBI research calendar, as leading researchers and observers from across the US gather in one site to review research and discuss and observe trends in research for one of the most important health issues of our time," said John Waslif, Managing Director of Arrowhead Publishers, the producers of the TBI conference.

"Working with the advice and counsel of US TBI leaders, the TBI Conference is pleased to have confirmed many top researchers to present their latest research. We still have a number of new topics and researchers to finalize in the New Year but the 2015 conference is already shaping up to be a memorable one."

Called the silent epidemic, traumatic brain injury is one of the least understood major health issues in our time. Each year more than 1.5 million people go to hospital as a result of suffering a TBI and many more suffer at home without reporting an injury. The CDC reports that more than 50,000 deaths are recorded from TBIs each year. TBI is the leading cause of death and disability in children.

One key stream of the conference will cover pediatric TBI, including presentations on tracking best pediatric medical treatment methods and updating the progress of potential therapies for acute TBI for children and adults. Some of the world's leading experts in TBI will outline developments in this area, including the emerging research underlining the fact that concussions are not transitory but instead have significant long-term aftereffects, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, and others.

Research updates regarding potential pharmaceutical treatments for TBI will be presented. These include amantadine, erythropoietin (EPO), cyclosporine, progesterone, combination therapies (where two or more therapies are given during the acute treatment phase), and others.

"Among our 30 confirmed speakers, the TBI Conference will feature investigators from both progesterone phase III studies to present on lessons learned from those trials," notes Waslif. "The failure of progesterone to demonstrate a clinical effect in acute TBI injury treatment has sparked a significant debate in the research community about best research and clinical trial practices for TBI pharmaceuticals going forward. We expect there will be plenty of vigorous discussion on this and many other topics during our conference."

More information, including sponsor/exhibitor opportunities and our scientific poster session, can be found at www.tbiconference.com. Highlights from the current agenda are attached below.

For more information, please contact:
John Waslif
Managing Director
Arrowhead Publishers
866-945-0263
[email protected]

Or
Steve Campbell
President
Campbell & Company Public Relations
604-888-5267
[email protected]


Addendum

The 5th Annual TBI Conference

Current agenda highlights - December 2014
www.tbiconference.com

The preliminary agenda for the 5th Annual Traumatic Brain Injury Conference has just been announced. We hope you can join us in Washington, DC on April 15-16 for what's shaping up to be a groundbreaking conference. Over 30 speakers will be covering such subjects as biomarkers for TBI, translational science, therapeutic development, preclinical research, clinical trial design, and advanced imaging. Following below is a sneak peak at the agenda. For the full agenda, please visit http://www.tbiconference.com.

TRACK-TBI: Common Data Elements (CDEs), Neuroimaging Standards, and Best Practices for Genetics and Proteomics in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Studies (tentative title)
Geoff Manley, MD, Ph.D., Professor and Vice Chairman of Neurological Surgery, Chief of Neurosurgery, Co-Director, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco General Hospital, Brain and Spinal Injury Center (BASIC)

The ProTECT III Clinical Trial, is There A Path Forward?
David Wright, MD, FACEP, Associate Professor, PI ProTECT III Clinical Trial, Director, Emergency Neurosciences, Department of Emergency Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine

Operation Brain Trauma Therapy (OBTT): A Multisite Research Consortium to Identify Promising Therapies for TBI (tentative title)
Patrick Kochanek, MD, MCCM, Professor & Vice Chair, Department of Critical Care Medicine, Professor of Anesthesiology, Pediatrics and Clinical and Translational Science, Director, Safar Center for Resuscitation Research, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

NINDS Office of Translational Research: New Programs to Support Therapy Discovery and Development
Amir Tamiz, Ph.D., Scientific Program Manager, Office of Translational Research, NINDS

CENC: A National Research Consortium to Understand the Linkage Between Concussion/Blast Exposures and Chronic Effects (tentative title)
David Cifu, MD, Chairman and Herman J. Flax, M.D. Professor, Department of PM&R, Founding Director, Center for Rehabilitation Sciences and Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, National Director for PM&R Services, Department of Veterans Affairs

T807 Tauopathy Imaging and Florbetapir Amyloid Imaging in Clinically Probable CTE
Sam Gandy, MD, Ph.D., Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, Associate Director of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

FDA's Drug Development Tool Qualification: Lessons Learned
Nicholas Kozauer, MD, Sr. Therapeutic Regulatory Lead, Central Nervous System, Quintiles

Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury - Rationale for and an Update of the ADAPT Trial
Mike Bell, MD, Director, Pediatric Neurocritical Care and Neurotrauma, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

CARE: The Concussion Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) Consortium (tentative title)
Thomas McAllister, MD, Albert E. Sterne Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine

A Statistical Model Potentially Applicable to Analysis of Data from Exploratory Trials in TBI
Larry Glass, Chief Science Officer, Neuren Pharmaceuticals

Preparing for a Randomized Controlled Trial: The Value of Preliminary Observational Studies
John Whyte, MD, Ph.D., Director, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute

The Use of Amantadine in Traumatic Brain Injury (tentative title)
Flora Hammond, MD, Covalt Professor and Chair, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Indiana University School of Medicine, Chief of Medical Affairs, Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana

Erythropoietin for Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury
Claudia Robertson, MD, Professor, Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine

You can download a brochure with a fully updated agenda for this event here:
http://tbiconference.com/home/index.php/brochure

# # #