Renewal Application ARVO Annual Meeting 5 U13 EY02143 Project Summary/Abstract The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annually conducts the principal international eye research meeting. Over 11,000 eye and vision researchers attend this meeting, which is held in cities throughout the United States. Nearly 6,500 researchers submit scientific abstracts describing their recent eye and vision research findings. Of these, over 6,000 abstracts are accepted for presentation in paper and poster sessions during the five-day meeting. Participation in the ARVO meeting remains strong, regardless of funding levels and economic conditions. After 18 year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the ARVO Annual Meeting began rotating to a variety of U.S. and Canadian cities, allowing researchers from around the world access to the Meeting. The ARVO Annual Meeting is targeted to clinical practitioners, research scientists, medical education professionals, and students-in-training from a variety of disciplines. Nearly 40% of participants each year are students- in-training; this number mirrors the percentage for abstract submitters as well. The research objectives of the programs of the National Institutes of Health and of the National Eye Institute, including the Audacious Goals program, are well-represented in the Annual Meeting programs and in individual presentations. The research presented at the ARVO Annual Meeting represents the latest developments in understanding, diagnosing, preventing and treating the many sight-threatening diseases and conditions. This meeting is of particular importance in the development of new and early-career investigators, as it provides not only a forum for presentation and critical analysis of their work, but also an informal setting in which they can discuss their research problems. By associating with the leaders in the field, new and early-career investigators can see the value of continued dedicated research efforts. The overall objective of this grant is to provide travel grant awards that cover partial support for travel and hotel to attend the ARVO Annual Meeting for those new and early-career investigators who demonstrate potential for future success as eye and vision researchers and whose research findings are accepted for presentation at the Meeting are considered to be of high interest to the ophthalmic research community. This grant will provide travel funds for 70 investigators each year from 2018 to 2022. The meeting dates and locations for the ARVO Annual Meeting are: April 29 – May 3, 2018 Honolulu, Hawaii April 28 – May 2, 2019 Vancouver, Canada May 3-7, 2020 Baltimore, Maryland May 2-6, 2021 San Francisco, California May 1-5, 2022 Denver, Colorado