10 May 2016: Heading to Baltimore
‘Charm City’s’ historic inner harbor is the scenic backdrop to this year’s International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). On Wednesday, some 1,800 autism researchers and clinicians are expected to descend upon the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland to present close to 1,400 panels, oral sessions and posters over four days.
Now in its 15th year, IMFAR is the largest and oldest autism science meeting in the world. The conference brings together a diversity of expertise and disciplines, from junior investigators to practicing clinicians. Keynote speeches by Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Guoping Feng and Paul Shattuck will span environmental influences, molecular mechanisms and ways to promote positive outcomes for people with autism and their families.
The rest of the program includes presentations on topics ranging from autism genetics to increasing access to services and expanding recruitment strategies. New this year is a panel session on research into transcranial magnetic stimulation — a technology that involves changing the brain’s neural activity with a powerful magnet.
A number of innovations from last year’s IMFAR are slated to repeat this year. Panel sessions will once again follow each keynote address and hors d’oeuvres will accompany the popular evening poster sessions.
There are plenty of opportunities to meet the Spectrum team, too. We’re hosting a Twitter chat live from IMFAR on Thursday, 12 May at 4 p.m. EDT. We plan to pose questions about research presented at the conference on Twitter from our handle @Spectrumgo, using the hashtag #IMFARChat. If you’re at the conference, please stop by and tweet with us in the convention center’s press room. We’re also hosting a ‘Wiki-a-thon’ on Friday, 13 May at 12 p.m. EDT in the press room. There, you can become an editor of our wiki, a growing encyclopedia of autism-related terms — and have pizza on us.
Also look out for our extensive news coverage of the conference, including our daily dispatches, and quotes from the conference floor. A summary of our activities appears in our IMFAR newsletter, which we plan to publish each day of the conference, starting Thursday.
We hope to see you there — in person and online!
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