Dear Friends and Colleagues:

In an effort to prepare our research trainees to share their research achievements and to enhance their skills in public speaking and discussing their work, we would like to foster formal environments and provide educational opportunities at the Byers Eye Institute (BEI) for them, beyond the Friday afternoon research seminars and other teaching conferences.

Toward that goal, we have initiated the Byers Young Investigators Research Conference (BYIRC). The inaugural BYIRC occurred live in April 2019.  We were not able to host BYIRC in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic.  In 2021, the BYIRC occurred virtually over two Saturday mornings.  The 2023 BYIRC occurred live on Friday, April 21, at the Byers Eye Institute with recorded attendance.  During the past year, we have discussed interests with other peer institutions in the Bay Area and are very pleased to announce that the University of California at Berkeley will formally join the planning for the 2024 Conference.  Other institutions will also be sending their trainees to participate.  To that extent, we have now changed the name of the Conference to Bay Area Young Investigators Research Conference (still BYIRC!)  

It is with tremendous pleasure for us to announce that the 2024 BYIRC will be on Friday, April 12, 2024, starting at 7:30 AM PDT, in the Conference Center at 3145 Porter Drive, Palo Alto, on the campus of Stanford University.  Please see the attached announcement. 

As with past Conferences, we would like to ask all colleagues to invite and encourage secondary school, undergraduate, medical and graduate students, residents, post-doctoral fellows, clinical fellows, and visiting scholars with whom they work and mentor to participate.  As discussed during our previous faculty meetings, we are inviting our BEI residents to submit their work and present as well.  It will be a wonderful opportunity for our trainees to present formally in front of an audience who may or may not be fully knowledgeable of their work.  Among the skills to be mastered is the ability to present information in such a way that can be comprehended by a broad audience.  

We will plan so that there will be different sessions throughout the Conference that will be moderated by Byers/Stanford and UC Berkeley faculty members.  The faculty and the audience will provide feedback to the trainee that hopefully will be very productive and educational.  The Planning Committee and the Advisory Committee have suggested that each trainee is allowed sufficient time devoted to the oral presentation and discussion and comments.

All faculty members, residents, and trainees are invited to attend the Conference, in full or in part, to help to provide feedback to the research trainees.  Faculty mentors of the research trainees are asked to be present to support their trainees.

As April 12, 2024, will be just a few weeks before the 2024 ARVO Congress in Seattle, BYIRC will be a wonderful opportunity for research trainees to present their ARVO work before they have to do so in Seattle.  Abstract submission for BYIRC is due no later than Saturday, March 16, 2024, so that a proper Program can be arranged. 

In another effort to prepare our trainees to be able to plan scientific programs so that in the future they may participate in the ARVO Planning Committee or that for another congress, we will have the research trainees plan this Conference together with the inputs from the Faculty Advisory Committee.  We will then invite the appropriate Byers/Stanford and Berkeley faculty members to moderate various sessions to stimulate discussions among the presenters and the attendees. Below is a link to the website to register and submit an abstract.

http://med.stanford.edu/ophthalmology/research/byirc.html

The website has been set up by Sohail Halim, MBBS, a research scholar and collaborator at BEI. 

We thank everyone for your support of the Bay Area Young Investigators Research Conference to prepare and mentor our research trainees for their future careers.  Please let us know if we can provide you with any additional information. 

Best regards,

BYIRC Young Investigators Planning Committee

Amir Akhavanrezayat (Nguyen and Do Laboratory, Stanford), Coordinator

Mohajeet Balveer Bhuckory (Palanker Laboratory, Stanford)

Julian Garcia (Liu Laboratory, Stanford)

Lobna Hamed (Wang Laboratory, Stanford)

Jia-Horung Hung (Nguyen and Do Laboratory, Stanford)

Kholood Janjua (Sepah Laboratory, Stanford)

Tasneem Khatib (Goldberg Laboratory, Stanford)

Matangi Kumar (Gronert Laboratory, UC Berkeley)

Karteek Kunala (Dubra Laboratory, Stanford)

Beatrice Le (Flannery Laboratory, UC Berkeley)

Azadeh Mobasserian (Nguyen and Do Laboratory, Stanford)

Seyed Saeed Mohammadi (Nguyen and Do Laboratory, Stanford)

Kristin Slinger (Roberts Laboratory, Stanford)

Brian Soetikno (Resident Service, Stanford)

George Ming Yang (Hu Laboratory, Stanford)

Shuai Yang (Hartnett Laboratory, Stanford)

Woong-Sun Yoo (Nguyen and Do Laboratory, Stanford)

Administrative Assistant

Jeremy Lucky

BYIRC Faculty Advisory Committee 

Charles DeBoer (Stanford)

Diana Do (Stanford)

Alfredo Dubra (Stanford)

Jeffrey Goldberg (Stanford)

Mary Elizabeth Hartnett (Stanford)

Yang Hu (Stanford)

Joyce Liao (Stanford)

Wendy Liu (Stanford)

Prithvi Mruthyunjaya (Stanford)

Quan Dong Nguyen (Stanford), Chair

Stephen Smith (Stanford)

W. Rowland Taylor (UC Berkeley)

Sui Wang (Stanford)