On Sep. 8 and 9, researchers from a consortium of U.S. universities working globally to address non-communicable diseases (NCDs) will come together to share ideas, engage potential collaborators, and identify funding opportunities to support their vital work in the field of NCD prevention, treatment and advocacy.

Hosted in Atlanta by Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, the U.S. Investigators' Network Symposium on Global Non-communicable Disease Research will allow investigators dedicated to global NCD research to present their ideas to such influential funding sources as the CDC and the NIH.

The symposium, which will gather both junior and senior investigators from universities across the country – including Emory, Duke, Harvard, University of California San Francisco, University of Washington, and Yale, among others – hopes to achieve several goals with its inaugural meeting. First, the meeting aims to create a space for researchers to isolate areas of convergence between their own work and that of their colleagues in the field, which might allow for logical partnerships and attract potential funders.

"Global health offers huge future potential for US science and academia, and can position the US to be a leader in science while contributing to the health of the world,” says K.M. Venkat Narayan, MD, MBA, director of Emory Global Diabetes Research Center and Hubert Chair in Global Health. “We hope that by bringing together individuals working in global NCD research in academia all over the U.S., we will spark ideas for new collaborations and foster the growth of existing ones.”

Meeting organizers also intend to provide a platform for junior investigators — doctoral and post-doctoral fellows, as well as junior faculty — to explore career development opportunities through joint research collaborations. As well, the symposium offers an arena to look deeply at funding opportunities for global NCD research and the chance to dialogue about how to maximize these openings.

NCDs — chiefly cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, cancer, diabetes and mental health — have quickly become a global health emergency, responsible for 36 million deaths per year worldwide, 80 percent of which are in developing countries. The symposium will serve as a launch pad for innovation and collaboration to solve some of the global problems that NCDs pose.  

Of the symposium's goal, Emory's Assistant Professor of Global Health Mohammed K. Ali, says, "As the world's health profile changes towards more chronic and less acute infectious conditions, we all face the challenge of helping people age healthily, in every corner of the globe. Global health offers the opportunity to explore, test, implement and share the best ways to achieve this.”

Find out more information on the U.S. Investigators Symposium on Global NCD Research and see a schedule of events here.