While UF diabetes investigators discuss their research findings at the American Diabetes Association’s 71st Scientific Sessions, a 10-year-old from Gainesville will travel to Washington, D.C., to urge lawmakers to continue funding for diabetes research. As a delegate to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Federation’s Children’s Congress, Cassidy O’Neill will join 150 other children — ages 4 to 17, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia – in Washington, DC, from June 20 to 22.

Children’s Congress, held every other summer, will be led by JDRF’s International Chairman Mary Tyler Moore, and will include Congressional visits by the child delegates and a Senate hearing during which Ms. Moore, select delegates, researchers, and business and community leaders will testify on the need for continued funding for type 1 diabetes research, under the theme of “Promise to Remember Me.”