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Key Dates
Abstract submission deadline:
30 October 2009
End of earlybird registration deadline:
27 October 2009
Guaranteed Hotel Reservation Deadline:
07 December 2009
Registrations must be made onsite after:
28 January 2010
Scientific Program
The scientific program will run for 3 full days from Monday, 1 February to Wednesday, 3 February 2010.There will be 4 Plenary Lectures and 16 Symposia (including the Presidential and IBRO-ANS Symposia) featuring outstanding overseas and Australian speakers.
- The Poster Program can be downloaded from here
- The Plenary, Symposia and Oral program can be downloaded from here
- The Final Timetable can be downloaded from here
Plenary Lectures
ANS/AuPS Overseas Lecture: Gilles Laurent
Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Sponsored by the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute
Gilles Laurent spent the first 11 years of his life in Morocco, before moving to France, where he studied
veterinary medicine and neuroethology (Toulouse). He was rescued from a large-animal vet practice by
Malcolm Burrows, who offered him a postdoc in his lab in 1985. Gilles spent the next four-and-a-half
years in Cambridge and learned neuroscience from Malcolm Burrows, Simon Laughlin and Roger Hardie
who were his neighbors. In 1990, Gilles moved to the California Institute of Technology and remained on
its faculty until 2009. In August 2009, Gilles will move to the Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research in
Frankfurt, where Erin Schuman, Peter Mombaerts and he will be co-directors of a new Institute focused
on neural circuits. Gilles’ research interests are in neural coding and network architecture.
He is particularly interested in dynamics and the emergent properties of systems. His lab has worked
principally on olfactory coding over the past 15 years, with occasional forays into vision and motor control.
The Physiological Society (UK) Exchange Lecture: David Attwell
Jodrell Professor of Physiology, Department of Physiology, University College London
David Attwell did an undergraduate degree in physics and a PhD in neurophysiology with Julian Jack
in Oxford, followed by post-doctoral work on the retina with Frank Werblin in Berkeley, before joining
the Physiology Department at University College London. He has worked extensively on neuron-glial
interactions in the brain, particularly on how, in conditions of energy deprivation such as stroke, perinatal
asphyxia and spinal cord injury, glutamate transporters reverse and release glutamate, which damages
neurons and oligodendrocytes. His recent work has been on the energy supply and energy use of the
brain, how energy provision determines the computational power of neurons, and the consequences of a
loss of energy supply in pathological conditions. Specific recent findings include the discovery of a type
of oligodendrocyte precursor glial cell which fires action potentials, and showing that brain blood flow
can be controlled at the capillary level by contractile cells called pericytes. He was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society in 2001.
ANS Plenary Lecture: Herbert Herzog
Professor and Director, Neuroscience Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney
Herbert Herzog is a Principal Research Fellow of the NHMRC and Director of the Neuroscience Program
at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of
Innsbruck and was awarded the prestigious 'Erwin Schrödinger Postdoctoral Fellowship' in 1991 to move
to the Garvan. In 1996 he obtained his 'Habilitation' (Doctor of Science) from the Free University of Berlin.
In 2000 he received a Wellcome Trust Fellowship to work as a Visiting Professor at King's College, London
and in 2005 he was appointed Director of the Neuroscience Program at the Garvan Institute. Dr Herzog
has received a number of awards during his career, including plenary lectures at International Congresses,
and most recently the Victor Mutt Award from the Regulatory Peptide Society in 2009. The major areas
of Dr Herzog's research interest are neuropeptides and their receptors, particular NPY receptors, and
their actions on appetite control and regulation of energy homeostasis. Dr Herzog has published more
than 150 papers in leading biomedical journals, including Nature, Nature Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Genes &
Development, Cell Metabolism, J. Exp. Medicine, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Diabetes, Journal of Biological Chemistry and FASEB
Journal, as well as several book chapters. His contributions include the first cloning of a NPY receptor and characterising its role
in appetite control as well as demonstrating novel critical functions of NPY signalling in the central control of bone formation,
fertility and stress induced obesity.
AuPS Invited Lecture: David J. Adams
Professor and Director, Health Innovations Research Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne
David Adams was awarded BSc (Hons I) in 1974 and PhD in physiology under the supervision of Peter
Gage from UNSW in 1979. He received his postdoctoral training with Bertil Hille at the University
of Washington, Seattle (1978-1980) and with David Colquhoun at University College London (1981-
1983). He was appointed as Assistant Professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami,
FL in 1984, promoted to Professor in 1993 before returning to Australia in 1995 to take up the Chair of
Physiology at the University of Queensland. He was Head of Department of Physiology & Pharmacology
(1998-2000) and Head of the School of Biomedical Sciences (2000-2007) before joining the Queensland
Brain Institute as a Professorial Research Fellow. In mid-2009, he moved to RMIT University, Melbourne
as Director of the Health Innovations Research Institute. Professor Adams’ research interests are in
the expression, function and modulation of ion channels. His recent research has identified novel peptides obtained from the
venom of cone snails as probes for ion channel structure and function and as potential analgesics. He is currently President of the
Australian Physiological Society (AuPS).
Oral Communications
Some abstracts will be selected for oral communication sessions, which will be held every day of the conference.