BSCR travel report – Weinstein 2024 conference
Ian McCracken
15th-17th May 2024
The 2024 Weinstein Conference was held at Hotel Bonaventure in Montreal between the 15th and 17th of May, 2024. The annual Weinstein Conference showcases the leading research in the field of cardiovascular development and regeneration. The three-day conference included talks across a range of themes including cardiac conduction and electrophysiology, congenital heart disease models, cardiomyocyte biology and cell fate, valvular and vascular biology, and human genetics and tissue engineering. Each of the included themes featured a fantastic range of high-quality speakers at varying career stages. I particularly enjoyed how despite the range of disciplines covered across the different sessions I was able to draw comparisons with my individual research interests, inspiring me to think how some of the methodologies and rationales could be applied to my own work.
The conference featured two exemplary keynote lectures featuring Prof Freda Miller from the University of British Columbia and Prof Christine Mummery from Leiden University. Prof Miller’s work focused on using digit tip regeneration as a non-cardiac model of mammalian regeneration. The work presented highlighted the importance of the combined roles of Schwann, epidermal, and mesenchymal cells in orchestrating the regenerative response. I found it fascinating how seemingly minor perturbations in this system can result in a blunted regenerative response and how this may relate to identifying the ‘missing factors’ in a non-regenerative environment such as the infarcted heart. Prof Mummery’s keynote lecture showcased her groups enormous amount of work establishing human ‘cardiac microtissues’ made using hiPSC derived cardiomyocytes, endothelial, and fibroblasts. I was particularly impressed with how this seemingly complex model has been adapted for high throughput arrayed screening with exciting potential for assessing the arrhythmogenic potential of new drugs or even for precision medicine applications.
Aside from the keynote lectures I also enjoyed many other talks including from David Wolfston from Prof Ken Poss’ lab describing how tissue regeneration enhancer elements (TREE’s) can be used to design injury-targeting gene therapy vectors. Another stand out talk was delivered by Matthew Miyamato from Dr Casey Gifford’s lab which detailed how CRISPRi technologies can be applied to hiPSC-derived cardiac organoids to help understand the aetiology of hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
I was fortunate enough have the opportunity to present my poster in the first of the two poster sessions of the conference. This gave me the chance to talk to fellow researchers to discuss my own work using hiPSC-derived endocardial cells to model coronary endothelial cell development. Amongst the many discussions throughout the session, I received valuable feedback which will help inform the direction of my future research. Apart from the academic highlights of the conference there was also plenty of time for networking including the gala dinner on the final evening giving time to socialise and make new connections with researchers from across the world. After the end of the conference, I was able to explore the sights of Montreal before venturing to Toronto and a memorable day trip to Niagara Falls.
