The Center for Glial Biology in Health, Disease, and Cancer at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, will host the Fifth International Conference of Glial Biology in Medicine. The conference is coming to Roanoke, Virginia, for the first time at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center.

“This conference attracts one of the biggest concentrations of leaders in glial biology from France, England, Germany, the United States, and other nations, and it has a new home in Roanoke,” said Harald Sontheimer, the I.D. Wilson Chair in the College of Science and director of the Center for Glial Biology in Health, Disease, and Cancer at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. “For me, it is all about becoming a national and international research center to better understand brain cancer, glia and the immune system, and glial cell contributions to nervous system injury and disease.”

Ultimately, Sontheimer, who is also the executive director of the School of Neuroscience in the Virginia Tech College of Science and a Commonwealth Eminent Scholar in Cancer Research, hopes the effort will lead to new treatments and diagnostics for pressing national health problems.

Taking only gliomas into account, nearly 78,000 patients are expected to be diagnosed with brain tumors in 2016, including 25,000 primary malignant and 53,000 nonmalignant brain tumors, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.

More than 120 researchers, clinicians, and students have registered for the conference, including speakers from other major Virginia universities, Harvard Medical School, Duke University, the Children’s National Health System, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, among others.

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