3 deftly accommodate the logistics of moving thousands of conference attendees around an enormous site — while supporting intimate enough sub-environments to create personal connections between Alzheimer’s scientists, researchers, clinicians, and caregivers from all corners of the world. Why do the connections matter? They allow attendees to learn about each other’s work — the findings of a new study, for example, or an intriguing refinement of a treatment protocol, or alternatives in brain- imaging techniques. Thrilling opportunities for collaboration then result, which can lead to breakthroughs in the science and treatment of a disease that ravages minds and breaks hearts. These collaborations are everything. Because the need for new treatments is dire. Worldwide, more than 55 million people are living with dementia. In the United States alone, nearly 7 million people are living with Alzheimer’s. The price tag is staggering: In 2024, Alzheimer’s and other dementias will cost the nation $360 billion; by 2050, that number could hit $1 trillion. Putting a dent in these numbers will take continual collaboration between those on the front lines of eradicating the disease. And where they reliably meet is at global gatherings like AAIC24. In recent years, the number of collaborations born at the conference has grown “exponentially,” says the association’s chief science officer, Maria Carrillo, Ph.D. “It happens at every conference — it’s constant,” says Carrillo excitedly of the ways that attendees discover kindred Alzheimer’s warriors they’d simply not have met otherwise. “There’s just nothing like a face-to-face opportunity where people are presenting work, and then get ideas about how they can work with those presenting around them.” The real-time connection is especially thrilling for young, post-doc students and early-career scientists who attend the deliberately intergenerational conference. They’re presented with an extraordinary chance to share their passions with revered, veteran scientists, researchers, clinicians, and tech pioneers whose work lights them up. Mentorships result. Lightbulbs go off. Research unfolds. And often, in just a few years, that research is presented at the annual conference, and the cycle begins again. The challenge, then, for the organizers of each conference is to provide a broad enough variety of activities, spaces, presentations, and experiences where diverse cohorts of attendees can literally find each other — and widen their networks. It’s a tall order. Attendees at the annual conference hail from around the globe, representing every professional discipline in the world of Alzheimer’s — basic scientists, clinical researchers, early career investigators, clinicians, and the care research community. And they represent every demographic of race, gender, ethnicity, age, physical ability, affinity group, focus of study, and stage of life. The association needs for each attendee to feel that this is their conference. Because nothing motivates people to enthusiastically participate at a gathering more than the feeling that they absolutely belong there. “That’s why it’s so important that the PHLCVB and the city itself enable us to provide a warm welcome and hospitality,” says Carrillo emphatically. “It’s important for the science.” The PHLCVB’s Grasso, a 25-year veteran with the bureau, was confident her team could deliver for the association — and for Philadelphia itself. Because big, global conferences are as important for the city as they are for the institutions that bring them here. “The PHLCVB and the city itself enabled us to provide a warm welcome and hospitality,” says Carrillo emphatically. “It’s important for the science.”
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