Welcome to the Focused Scientific Sessions at the 2017 ACVP and ASVCP Concurrent Annual Meeting in Vancouver

The Focused Scientific Sessions (FSS) at the 2017 Combined Annual Meeting of the American College of Veterinary Pathology (ACVP) and American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology (ASVCP) this November in Vancouver, British Columbia, will reflect the broad array of scientific interests within the veterinary pathology community. The FSS platform presentations will be held on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, November 5 through 7, with associated poster sessions highlighted during the session breaks on these days. We anticipate a large number of original abstracts from institutions all over the world from which awardees for the ACVP Graduate Student/Resident Travel Award, ASVCP Share the Future Travel Grant, and the Society of Toxicologic Pathology Resident and Student Poster Award will be selected. Platform presentations include talks by invited experts, selected submitted abstracts, and competitors for the ASVCP Young Investigator Award (YIA). Poster presentations will include all ACVP YIA competitors. Back by popular demand, veterinary student posters will be presented during the Opening Reception on Saturday, November 4.

The FSS committees have been hard at work organizing programs to showcase the work of our college members and to bring innovative science and technology from outside resources to the attention of our membership. This year, in addition to the traditional FSS categories, there will be a special session on Wildlife Pathology of the Great Northwest on Wednesday, November 8. This session will feature speakers discussing pathology of killer whales and pond turtles, protozoal and fungal infections, and pollution as conservation threat in sea life. In conjunction, a special breakout session will highlight posters on wildlife pathology, which will also be featured in the Mystery slide review. Submissions on this topic in all FSS categories are especially encouraged.

The FSS committees have planned a diverse and exciting program. The FSS presentations will begin on Sunday morning, November 5. Highlights from these sessions include:

Clinical Pathology: Featured speakers will discuss noninvasive diagnostics for canine transitional cell carcinoma and exosomes in bone health and disease.

Diagnostic Pathology: Two afternoons of diagnostic pathology sessions will focus on case reports as well as a featured presentation from the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD) travel award winner. Competitors for the ACVP/AAVLD Diagnostic Pathology Travel Award will be giving platform presentations in the session on Tuesday, November 7. New this year will be lightning talks in the Sunday session including select veterinary student platform presentations.

Education: This session will be held on Tuesday, November 7, and will focus on communication. In the first half of the session, invited speakers will discuss communication styles and improving communication across units (cross-functional communication). The second half will highlight communication challenges unique to residency training and ethical considerations in communication about the ACVP board examination.

Experimental Disease: Featured speakers will discuss humanized mouse models, the dog aging project, biomarker discovery at the boundary of spontaneous and experimental disease, and the role of folliculin interacting protein-1 in cell development and metabolism.

Industrial and Toxicologic Pathology: Featured speakers will discuss safety considerations for CRISPR/Cas9-based gene therapy, mitigating bottlenecks in drug development by building a data-savvy organization, immunophenotyping of ocular lesions, and digital pathology in drug discovery.

Natural Disease: Featured speakers will present an interactive session on liver pathophysiology and discuss oral mucosal disease in dogs and livestock neuropathology.

Accepted abstracts will be published on the ACVP website as part of the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting and will be part of a permanent searchable archive. For meeting attendees and others who would like to review the abstracts before arriving in Vancouver, accepted abstracts will be accessible via the website approximately 1 month before the meeting. Veterinary student poster award winners will be recognized at the student breakfast Sunday morning. All other award winners will be recognized at the award ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.

We look forward to seeing you in Vancouver!

Christiane Löhr Focused Scientific Sessions Chair On behalf of the ACVP Education Committee