WORKSHOP & CONFERENCE REPORT

 

 

 

The Workshop in Neuroscience ‘Ischemia/Hypoxia in the Brain’ held in conjunction with The 1st International Conference of the National Neuroscience Society of Romania were successful.

A Physiological Society Workshop in Neuroscience was held in conjunction with an IBRO, IBRO-CEERC and Wellcome Trust sponsored International Conference of Neuroscience in Bucharest, Romania, on September 23-27, 2003.   

 

The organizers selected 38 young scientists from Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, UK, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Armenia and Romania. The Workshop programme consisted in lectures in the mornings and practical demonstration sessions in the afternoons. The Workshop lectures covered topics on cerebral ischemia/hypoxia from a cellular, molecular and clinical perspective (http://www.snn.ro/workshop2003).

Practical demonstrations included in vivo (global and focal) and in vitro (primary neuronal cultures and hippocampal slices) models of cerebral ischemia/hypoxia, electrophysiologic, morphologic, sterologic and histochemical assessment of damage, vascular reactivity assessment, immunoblotting and intracellular calcium measurements, flow cytometry and immunofluorescence microscopy analysis of rat neuronal stem cells, basic patch clamp techniques, calcium imaging and patching DRG neurons (functional identification of neurones, perforated patch recording, simultaneous Ca/patch recording) and preparation of plasmid DNA and transient transfection.

The Workshop and Conference lectures were held at ‘Carol Davila’ University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest. Speakers were invited from UK, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, Belgium and Romania. The general topic of the Conference continued the theme set by the Workshop, integrating it in a wider Neuroscience perspective and covering both the basic science and clinical aspects of current Neuroscience research (http://www.snn.ro/conference2003/program.html).

The young scientists (most attending both events) had the opportunity to present their work, to discuss their ideas and to establish connections with neuroscientists from different countries. The poster presentations were evaluated by a scientific jury and prizes were awarded to the best three of them. The ‘Gheorghe Marinescu’ Prize was awarded for the first time by the National Neuroscience Society of Romania to a young scientist, in recognition of the research activity in the field of Neuroscience.