ISN Forefronts Florence – learning from each other
I had the great honor to participate, as one of the invited speakers, in the recent ISN Forefronts meeting on “Stem Cells and Kidney Regeneration” which was held September 12–15,2013 in beautiful Florence, Italy.
The organizers Drs. Paola Romagnani and Ben Humphreys, with the help of the wonderful ISN Conference team, put together an excellent interdisciplinary scientific program which covered the state-of-the-art in stem cell biology from plants to humans including evolutionary aspects of kidney regeneration, and the roles of tubular, glomerular and renal interstitial stem cells in renal pathology and clinical nephrology.
The active participation and presentations of faculty and members of leading, pioneering laboratories in the renal stem cell field, the active audience and lively discussions made this meeting a tremendous success! All participants learned a lot from each other in this dynamically evolving and exciting field.
I was excited to share with the audience the renal physiologists’ perspective of kidney regeneration, the relevance of the most robust and kidney-specific physiological stimuli (body salt and fluid balance) and the sensory cell types which may play an important role in renal tissue remodeling and regeneration.
From the technology point of view, and for a scientist who does kind of artistic, multicolor fluorescence imaging of the kidney, giving a talk in the city of arts and sciences was a magical experience. But at this conference we all felt the magic, special atmosphere of Florence, Italy, so the venue choice by ISN was “perfetto”! Congratulations to the organizers and the ISN Team on an outstanding meeting!
