The Neurotherapeutics Symposium 2022 will be the third in a series of conferences organized by the department of neurology of the University of Rochester in collaboration with other departments of neurology across the United States with the goal of accelerating the translation of advances in neurological therapy into improved health outcomes for all patients. The first Neurotherapeutics Symposium occurred in 2018 and focused on neuromuscular and movement disorders. The second one occurred in 2019 and focused on neurological emergencies. In both conferences, a concern shared by attendees and speakers was the lack of comprehensive efforts to educate the workforce on inequities that may begin and could be addressed during the translational research phase of therapy development.

Life-changing and curative therapies for disabling and fatal neurological conditions are costly and often inaccessible for patients from underrepresented minority (URM) populations. During translational research in neurology, much of this inaccessibility begins at the therapy development phase and grows through the implementation and dissemination phases. For example, URM patients with multiple sclerosis are less likely to be recruited for therapy trials and they also have a higher likelihood of being disabled due to a lack of appropriate treatment. There is, therefore, a critical need to widely educate the workforce on the importance of integrating an equity focus within translational research in neurology. Our long-term goal is to accelerate the translation of advances in neurological therapy into improved health outcomes for all patients. Our overall objective during this virtual symposium is for participants to integrate an equity focus within their ongoing and future translational research efforts in neurology.