9 May 2017: Heading to San Francisco
The West Coast home of hippies, techies and the Golden Gate Bridge is host to this year’s International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). Now in its 16th year, IMFAR is the oldest and largest autism research meeting in the world — and it grows every year.
On Wednesday, some 2,200 researchers, clinicians and others from 50 countries will gather at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel. They plan to disclose the latest scientific discoveries in some 1,500 panels, posters and oral sessions. That’s an uptick from the 1,800 participants and 1,400 presentations at last year’s IMFAR.
This year’s keynote speakers include Pat Levitt, who studies the neural pathways governing learning and memory, and Connie Kasari, who is developing community-based interventions for autism. Saturday’s keynote features Marcus Autism Center researchers Ami Klin and Warren Jones, who plan to discuss how to assess autism in infancy. The rest of the conference covers a similarly broad spectrum of topics, ranging from language to genetics.
You may run into Spectrum’s team of reporters at some of these sessions. We’ll also be hosting our annual Twitter chat live from IMFAR on Thursday, 11 May at 12:30 p.m. PDT. We plan to pose questions based on research presented at the conference using our handle @Spectrum and the hashtag #IMFARChat. Follow along online by searching for the hashtag, or, if you are attending the conference, participate in person at the Marriott Marquis’ press room. (It’s in the Willow Room on level B2.)
You can also help to build our wiki — a glossary of autism terms — on Friday, 12 May at 12:00 p.m. PDT in the press room. Review the wiki and come prepared with the term you’d like to add. Lunch is on us. If you complete your entry, you will receive a Spectrum tote bag with one of our site’s stunning illustrations.
If you miss something at the conference, we’ve got you covered. Follow our team’s extensive news reports of the sessions and posters here. We’ll also publish quotes from the conference floor in a running blog on this page. A summary of our activities will appear in our daily IMFAR newsletter.
We hope to see you in San Francisco!
For more reports from the 2017 International Meeting for Autism Research, please click here.
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