BHAVI 2021-06 Symposium
The BHAVI 2021 June Symposium will be held as a virtual meeting online Thursday 17 June 10:00 - 14:00 PDT (13:00 - 17:00 EDT). There will be no registration fees charged for attendance at this half-day symposium held via GoToMeeting videoconference at https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/720533269. Attendees should provide their full name and email address when connecting to the videoconference.
Invited Speakers
- Dr. Arthur Caplan, NYU Medical Center, New York NY
- Dr. Roland Henry, UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco CA
- Dr. Susie Huang, Harvard Mass General Hospital, Boston MA
- Dr. Kejal Kantarci, Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN
- Dr. Orhun Kantarci, Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN
- Dr. Charles Rosen, Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN
- Dr. Michael Zeineh, Stanford Medical Center, Stanford CA
Themes for the half-day workshop will be medical imaging for multiple sclerosis (MS), and the medical ethics of conducting clinical trials for MS patients in the midst or aftermath of the Covid19 pandemic. All times listed below in the program schedule are PDT (California time).
Session 1
- 10:00 – 10:10 Opening remarks
- 10:10 – 10:30 "The Three R’s: Getting the Diagnosis Right, Doing the Right thing, and Doing it Right", Charles Rosen, Mayo Clinic
- 10:30 – 10:50 "Multimodality Imaging of Neurodegeneration", Kejal Kantarci, Mayo Clinic
- 10:50 – 11:10 "PET Imaging in MS", Orhun Kantarci, Mayo Clinic
- 11:10 – 11:30 "Spinal Cord Imaging in Multiple Sclerosis", Roland Henry, UC San Francisco
- 11:30 – 11:50 "Ultra-high Resolution Brain Imaging at 7T", Michael Zeineh, Stanford University
- 11:50 – 12:00 Q & A
Session 2
- 12:00 – 12:50 "Advanced Clinical and Research Imaging in MS", Susie Huang, Harvard University
- 12:50 – 13:00 Q & A
Session 3
- 13:00 – 13:55 "Informed Consent and Information Sharing for Clinical Research Trials and Accelerated Approvals of Drugs", an open discussion with medical ethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan, New York University
- 13:55 – 14:00 Closing remarks
Presentation Summaries Provided by Speakers
- Dr. Roland Henry: Multiple Sclerosis is currently divided into 2 broad categories. Relapsing remitting MS whereby thereby there are clinical attacks often accompanied by new lesions on the brain or spinal cord, but with a remission phase where symptoms and disability measures may return fully or partially to pre-attach status. Progressive MS is different in that disability worsening occurs without clinical or MRI relapse activity. While new therapies have been highly effective at treatment of relapsing MS, the impact on progressive MS is uncertain and there is current high interesting in the development of biomarkers for progressive MS. Although more challenging to image than the brain, recent studies of the spinal cord atrophy in Multiple Sclerosis suggests that degeneration of the spinal cord may be the primary driver of both relapse related and relapse free sensorimotor disability progression. Spinal cord atrophy predicts the transition of patients from relapsing to progressive MS suggesting that progressive MS may be driven by a myelopathy.
- Dr. Kejal Kantarci: MRI and PET imaging biomarkers may provide complementary information on the mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration. I will talk about the optimization of imaging biomarkers for their applications in neurodegenerative diseases with a focus on clinical trials.
- Dr. Orhun Kantarci: I will talk about potential clinical-translational application of PET studies in MS and the role of PET in helping complement MRI in practice.
- Dr. Michael Zeineh: 7T MRI holds great promise for clinical brain imaging due to its increased signal and contrast levels. In this talk, I show examples of some of the stunning 7T technical work in brain imaging that is ongoing. I will then describe 7T applications for detailed neuroanatomy as well as novel information relevant to neurodegenerative disorders.
Brain Health Alliance IRB
A special meeting for members of the Brain Health Alliance IRB will be held after the workshop concludes to discuss safety criteria and approval for start of the EPSMS clinical trial. For more information about the EPSMS clinical trial, view the ClinicalTrials.gov registration at NCT04390009 or the research protocol published at Brainiacs Journal in the document Exploratory Study of Entire-body PET Scans for Multiple Sclerosis (EPSMS).