Rare diseases continue to pose enormous challenges for clinicians, healthcare institutions, society, and the daily life of affected individuals. Sometimes patients are even left without a defined diagnosis (undiagnosed diseases). While impressive achievements have elucidated the underlying pathomechanisms of rare diseases, several barriers need to be overcome in order for patients to benefit from recent research advances.
Vienna has become a hotspot for rare and undiagnosed disease research in Europe, including activities of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases (LBI-RUD) and its prestigious partner institutions, the Medical University of Vienna, St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute and the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Beyond institutional, local and national boundaries, important alliances have been formed, including a prioritized partnership with the NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network International (UDNI).
We are honored to host this 11th Conference of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network International (UDNI) jointly with the NIH and the Medical University of Vienna. We welcome congress participants who will jointly shape the future of rare disease research and clinical translation and also critically review and overcome the current societal challenges of rare diseases.
We are looking forward to seeing you at the meeting and to engage in many active and fruitful discussions.
Kaan Boztug, Georg Stary, William A. Gah
The conference agenda will address a wide range of topics, including:
- Inborn errors of immunity
- Inherited bone marrow failure syndromes and rare hematological diseases
- Rare dermatological diseases
- Rare neurological diseases
- Rare gastroenterological/intestinal diseases
- Rare metabolic diseases
- Genetics and bioinformatics approaches to rare diseases
- Model systems for the study of rare diseases
- Precision medicine approaches for rare diseases
Please note that for participants attending in person they are welcome to the Champions Dinner on November 6th 20:00 at restaurant Hansen, Wipplingerstrasse 34, 1010 Wien - please register!