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9th Annual SoNG Meeting

Published: 22 September 2011

9th Annual SoNG Meeting

This year the theme of the meeting was ‘Neuroscientists of the Future'. Held on Thursday 22nd September 2011 it also provide the setting for the official opening of the new Life Sciences Building and launch of the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS). SoNG has contributed the theme of 'Applied Neuroscience' to the IfLS and this provides a new platform for interdisciplinary neuroscience at Southampton. In view of this excitement about future prospects, it is very appropriate that the focus of the meeting was our brightest most enthusiastic early career researchers and the promise of neuroscience research for the future:  for the first time, the lectures were delivered by postdoctoral fellows and postgraduate students. This provided an excellent opportunity to sample the breadth of research that is being conducted across a number of different disciplines in neuroscience and provided a fitting context for the official launch of a new era of interdisciplinary Life Sciences at the University. The plenary lecturer was given by Trevor Robbins, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He is a long‐time champion of neuroscience having served as President of the British Neuroscience Association and we are delighted that he could attend.

With more than 150 delegates, 40 posters and some excellent talks the meeting was a great success. As is traditional, prizes were awarded for the best talk and posters. The judges were torn in deciding on the best talk and the prize was shared between Michelle Joyner (Centre for Biological Sciences; " A Neuroactive Compound to Kill Parasitic Worms?") and Andrew Treharne (Faculty of Medicine "Developing polymer scaffolds towards treatments for retinal diseases").

A centre piece of the meeting was the launch of the IfLS and a talk presented by Lord Winston. He was presented with a gift to commemorate his visit, a picture entitled ‘Shards of Life and Brain' provided by a pupil from Southlands School for boys and young men with Asperger's syndrome. (You can read more about the picture here).

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