Proceedings of the 2021 American Burn Association State and Future of Burn Science Meeting

Periodically, the American Burn Association (ABA) has convened a State of the Science meeting on various topics representing multiple disciplines within burn care and research. In 2021 at the request of the ABA President, meeting development was guided by the ABA's Burn Science Advisory Panel (BSAP) and a subgroup of meeting chairs. The goal of the meeting was to produce both an evaluation of the current literature and ongoing studies, and to produce a research agenda and/or define subject matter-relevant next steps to advance the field(s). Members of the BSAP defined the topics to be addressed and subsequently solicited for nominations of expert speakers and topic leaders from the ABA's Research Committee. Current background literature for each topic was compiled by the meeting chairs and the library then enhanced by the invited topic and breakout discussion leaders. The meeting was held in New Orleans, LA on November 2nd and 3rd and was formatted to allow for 12 different topics, each with two subtopics, to be addressed. Topic leaders provided a brief overview of each topic to approximately 100 attendees, followed by expert-lead breakout sessions for each topic that allowed for focused discussion among subject matter experts and interested participants. The breakout and topic group leaders worked with the participants to determine research needs and associated next steps including white papers, reviews and in some cases collaborative grant proposals. Here, summaries from each topic area will be presented to highlight the main foci of discussion and associated conclusions.