NIH Clinical Pre-Conference

November 4, 2021

Welcome to the 2021 Boston Lymphatic Symposium’s NIH Clinical Pre-Conference!

In this exciting session we bring together clinicians and researchers to explore the challenges and new scientific and technological opportunities that allow developing a widely and freely accessible lymphatic system (LS) knowledge base/tool allowing for multiscale LS expert navigation across the human body. We will emphasize the relevance of the fundamental understanding, systematic organization of knowledge of LS structure and function, and its coordination and interactions with other body tissues and organs for the clinical management of lymphatic dysfunction and diseases.

International experts will review the state of current scientific and clinical knowledge of the structure and organization of the human LS, including the latest advances in LS imaging at the clinical level, and the use of novel single cell technologies to map the lymphatic organs, discoveries of lymphatic system-specific biomarkers, and the knowledge management and computational tools available to organize this diverse information.

We will share ongoing global community advances in mapping the blood vasculature, the lymphatic and other organs, through the Anatomical Structures Cell Types and biomarkers (ASCT+B) effort championed by the NIH Common Fund Human BioMolecular Program (NIH HuBMAP), for which NHLBI is a leading institute. The NIH HuBMAP is developing a widely accessible framework for comprehensively mapping the entire human body across scales by supporting new technology development, data acquisition, computational analysis and detailed spatial mapping. All the tools, data generated, including tissue mapping information, are available to the entire scientific community through the HuBMAP Data Portal, encouraging wide scientific interrogation and collaborations.

Comprehensive mapping of the human lymphatic vessels is still needed to complete the entire LS, and the human body map. We will engage the participants in achieving this goal by: 1) adding to the current body of information being presented, 2) discussing how using various mapping technologies could enable a better understanding of lymphatic vessels in health and disease, 3) identifying potential research and technological gaps and opportunities.

On behalf of the organizing committee, we look forward to “seeing” and engaging you in achieving the goal of completing the map of the LS!