Neuroscience 2019: A Melting Pot for New Scientific Discoveries

Explore ground-breaking research at SfN’s 49th annual meeting through lectures debuting emerging science, professional development workshops that will help scientists strengthen their careers and create new connections, and the largest number of poster sessions in neuroscience, hosting close to 13,000 abstracts from around the world. Almost 30,000 neuroscientists, clinicians, educators, and advocates are planning to attend Neuroscience 2019, October 19-23, at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.

“I keep coming back to the SfN meeting because it is a great opportunity to see recent advances in the field that you are particularly interested in. It’s great to network with people in your field to get technical advice,” said Gillian Seaton, Cardiff University, Wales.

Neuroscience 2019 allows attendees to interact with scientists from all over in hope of fostering creativity and collaboration among them. Attendees will always leave the meeting with new ideas and partnerships they have created through participation in poster and nanosymposia, networking events, symposia, and other sessions.

“Creativity is important in neuroscience. All research, whether in its beginning stages or highly developed, came to life from an idea. Those ideas were created by passionate scientists who truly want to excel in their field. Attending Neuroscience 2019 offers an opportunity to spark those ideas and provide the resources to take those next steps,” said SfN 2019 Program Committee Chair Patricia Janak.

Science Knows No Borders

In support of the Society’s commitment to global collaboration in science, this year’s annual meeting will introduce the Science Knows No Borders program, which provides opportunities for scientists who have been denied U.S. travel visas to present their research at the meeting. An online application for the program is available, and SfN will be seeking volunteers later this summer to help onsite in Chicago.

Presidential Special Lectures

SfN President Diane Lipscombe is enthusiastic about the speakers she selected for the lectures this year. “All of the Presidential Special Lecture speakers are innovators in neuroscience with leading expertise in topics ranging from cellular diversity in vivo, optogenetics and wave-front shaping, and mechanisms of RNA splicing. I feel inspired by each of them and hope all of our Neuroscience 2019 attendees will feel invigorated by their talks as well,” Lipscombe said.

• Paola Arlotta, Chair of the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard. This lecture will present data on the mechanistic principles that control the developmental generation of cellular diversity in vivo and consider to what extent processes of cortical development can be replicated outside the embryo, within brain organoids. She will also discuss the challenges of modeling human corticogenesis in the dish, and the promise that brain organoids hold to investigate complex human neurodevelopmental disease.
• Daniel Colon-Ramos, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the Yale School of Medicine. His lab is interested in how synapses are precisely assembled to build the neuronal architecture that underlies behavior. Synapses are both precisely assembled during development and flexible during learning and memory. How can synapses be both precise and malleable to facilitate both the assembly and function of the brain? This lecture will discuss new findings that link the fundamental cell biological properties of single synapses to how they underpin the emergent property of the nervous system: behavior.
• Valentina Emiliani, Director of the Photonics Department and group leader of Wavefront engineering microscopy group (WFEMO) at the Vision Institute (CNRS, INSERM, Sorbonne University). Her lab has pioneered the use of wave-front shaping for neuroscience. The revolution of optogenetics has opened perspectives in both fundamental and medical neuroscience unimaginable 10 years ago. This lecture will discuss joint progress in the design of microbial opsins and in the shaping of wave fronts to precisely guide light through tissues bringing the field into a new phase known as “circuit optogenetics,” where neural circuits distributed across several brain areas can be optically interrogated and controlled with millisecond precision and single cell resolution.
• Adrian R. Krainer, holds the St. Giles Foundation Professorship at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. His lab studies the mechanisms of RNA splicing, ways in which they go awry in disease, and the means by which faulty splicing can be corrected. This lecture will describe the development of Nusinersen, the first Food and Drug Administration-approved drug for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), and its clinical impact. Using a similar approach, an antisense oligonucleotides was developed to correct defective RNA splicing of kappa B kinase complex-associated protein, which causes familial dysautonomia.

Dialogues Between Neuroscience and Society Lecture

The Dialogues Lecture will feature one of the top minds in artificial intelligence, Fei-Fei Li, Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, and Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute. Li is co-creator of ImageNet, a visual object recognition database which heralded the beginning of the deep learning revolution. She is cofounder of AI4ALL, a nonprofit dedicated to boosting diversity and inclusion in AI education.

Get a Head Start and Plan Your Meeting Experience

This is only a small preview of the scientific sessions and events planned for this year’s meeting. The society offers significant discounts on registration for members as this is one of the most anticipated events in science. Renew now to take advantage of lower prices for Neuroscience 2019. See you in Chicago!