On March 13-16, 2011 MDA held the National Scientific Conference, Neuromuscular Therapeutic Strategies: Overcoming the Barriers from Microscope to Marketplace, which was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The meeting focused on therapeutic strategies for neuromuscular diseases and highlighted sessions on oligonucleotide therapies, protein therapies, gene therapies, stem cell therapies and small molecule therapies under development for neuromuscular diseases. Spanning two-and-a-half days, there were platform presentations plus two poster sessions, along with plenty of time for networking and discussion.

The main objective of the meeting was to leverage the expertise of researchers across different neuromuscular disease areas, from the academic, corporate drug development and clinical arenas, to identify barriers to therapeutic development and to discuss strategies to overcome those barriers. To read more about the National Scientific Conference, please see MDA Conference Brings Together Researchers, Clinicians, Industry.

This meeting also launched MDA's new national conference series, consisting of biennial scientific meetings (in odd-numbered years) alternating with National Clinic Directors' Conferences (in even-numbered years).