The Start-up Meeting of our 973 Project “Plasticity in Brain Structure and Function” was held in the South-North Lake Area near Shanghai on February 14th , 2007.
On February 16th, 2007, Dr. ZHANG Xu was awarded the 6th Shanghai Peony Award for his research on the neural plasticity of the dorsal root ganglion and spinal dorsal horn, and the mechanism of chronic pain.
On February 16th, 2007, Dr. DUAN Shumin’s research on “Long-Term Potentiation of Neuron-Glia Synapses” was selected as one of the 2006 Top Ten News in Basic Research in China.
Dr. Xiao-bing Yuan was invited to attend the 1st Australia-China Biomedical Research Conference in Melbourne, held February 2nd to 4th, 2007.
On January 17th, the Journal of Neuroscience published a report from ION entitled “Differential roles of NR2A- and NR2B-containing NMDA receptors in activity-dependent BDNF gene regulation and limbic epileptogenesis”.
On December 20th, the first issue of PLoS ONE published a report from ION entitled “Requirement of TORC1 for Late-Phase Long-Term Potentiation in the Hippocampus”.
This year, the ION annual retreat was very special. It was the first joint retreat with faculty and students from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
On October 23, 2006, a delegation from Gordon Research Conferences visited ION,
Prof. Perry F. Bartlett from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) in Australia and Prof. Ai-Ke Guo from the Institute of Neuroscience signed a memorandum of understanding for research cooperations between the two institutes on October 12, 2006.
Prof. Chen Zhu, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), visited ION on October 7, 2006, accompanied by administors from the Bureau of Life Science & Biotechnology at CAS.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the Canada-China Joint Workshop on Neurogenetics in Ottawa, held September 28 to October 1, 2006.
On July 31st, Journal of Cell Biology published a report from ION entitled “Requirement of dendritic Akt degradation by ubiquitin proteasome system for neuronal polarity”.
On June 9th, Science published a report from ION entitled “Long-term potentiation of neuron-glia synapses mediated by Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors”.
On May 30th, PNAS published a report from ION entitled “Microtubule affinity-regulating kinase 2 functions downstream of the PAR-3/PAR-6/atypical PKC complex in regulating hippocampal neuronal polarity”.
The cover story of the May 4th issue of Neuron reported the ION finding “Activity-induced rapid synaptic maturation mediated by presynaptic cdc42 signaling”.
