8th American Transplant Congress
May 31 – June 4, 2008
Toronto
USWelcome Letter
It is with great pleasure that the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) and the American Society of Transplantation (AST) invite you to attend the 2008 American Transplant Congress (ATC) -- the 8th joint American transplant meeting. As 2008 is the 50th anniversary of the first successful Canadian transplant, it is fitting that the ATC is being held in Canada for the first time.
The ATC is the premier educational event in the field of basic and clinical transplantation. This year the Planning Committee has made several significant changes to the schedule and program in response to feedback from attendees via the evaluation forms. There will a joint plenary session held daily with the top scoring abstracts presented to the entire attendee audience. The poster sessions will be moved to the late afternoon and will include a beer and wine reception. This will provide more opportunity for networking with one another and a better audience for the posters.
The Saturday pre-meeting symposia will continue to provide focused updates for those attendees who choose to come early to the meeting. We are repeating the full day Clinical Updates, Transplant Immunology for the Clinician and the Transplant Nurses/Coordinators’ Course. This year, we are co-sponsoring three of these meetings with partnering societies. In a continuing effort to provide an improved meeting for those interested in liver transplantation and hepatology, we have added a full-day course on Hepatitis C and Liver Transplantation. On Saturday afternoon, there will symposia on pediatric transplantation, infectious diseases and maximizing donor management.
Each morning of the meeting, starting on Sunday, controversial topics and new developments will be the focus of the Sunrise Symposia. On Sunday and Monday, there will be four concurrent mid-day symposia focusing on the most topical issues in transplantation medicine. The ever popular, “What’s Hot, What’s New” will be the feature presentation on Wednesday, the final day of the meeting. The popular Early Morning Workshops will be expanded this year to run daily, Sunday – Wednesday.
The American Transplant Congress is the meeting to attend with the widest range of educational opportunities. Topics range from toll-like receptors and composite limb grafts to recent immunosuppression trials and issues in the globalization of transplantation. Toronto is a fun and surprising city, so please join us and our Canadian members for a week of outstanding programs and for the opportunity to network with your colleagues and friends.
