Cardiovascular illnesses are still the most important cause of mortality in developed countries, including Spain, despite the major advances in the diagnosis and treatment made in the past 20 years. In addition, the costs generated in economic, social and human terms are still very high. The Spanish Government, aware of this health situation, decided to set up the CNIC through the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) in order to group together the best cardiovascular research in Spain and provide it with a modern infrastructure and the necessary funding to achieve excellent biomedical research.

The CNIC is proud to organize the first CNIC Conference “At the heart of the genome: frontiers in cardiovascular genomics” to be held on October 6-7, 2011 at the CNIC Auditorium, Melchor Fernandez Almagro 3, Madrid, Spain. These CNIC conferences will take place twice a year, and will help to introduce the Center to the international Scientific Community by bringing together world leaders in specific fields between those with the greatest impact on cardiovascular medicine over the next decade.

Despite significant advances in medical management, the prognosis of heart failure remains very poor and the identification of mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets for treatment remain urgent. In recent years there has been a considerable increase in our knowledge both of gene expression patterns in heart disease and their regulation by cell signaling pathways, transcription factors and miRNAs. However, our understanding of how different regulatory layers are integrated and how molecular networks control these processes at a global level is still poor.

Revolutionary technical advances in recent years combined with increased computational capacity have now made possible a holistic approach to the study of gene expression and regulation in the heart. In this conference we will discuss the most recent advances in the field of cardiovascular genomics, both from a basic and a medical perspective. This meeting will cover all aspects of genomic regulation, from chromatin remodelling to microRNAs, from genome-wide association studies to nutrigenomics.

The goals of this program are: 1) fostering a multidisciplinary dialogue among researchers for understanding how heart development and disease are regulated at a global molecular level to provide the foundation for future therapeutic strategies., and 2) disseminating the symposium’s proceedings to a wider public through creating high-quality dissemination materials and press coverage, which will highlight the conference discussions to the global scientific community and the general public.

The agenda will feature plenary lectures, poster and short presentations selected from submitted abstracts.