Kavli PI Elena Seiradake organised a meeting in Crete in May 2022, together with some of the leading researchers in her field, including Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Alex Kolodkin, Amparo Acker-Palmer, and Valentin Naegerl.
The meeting brought together a diverse set of researchers interested in understanding how the nervous system works on a molecular level. Progress in this field is important as it may provide the key to understanding and treating currently incurable diseases, ranging from neurodegenerative diseases—like Alzheimer’s—to mental health disorders—such as schizophrenia. The meeting aimed to foster collaboration between experts from the structural, biophysical, and 'in vivo' communities. Researchers from all over the world presented breakthroughs in understanding the cellular navigation, wiring, synapse biology, and neurovascular processes that underpin brain functions. Set in a beautiful and warm location, this meeting provided an ideal space for learning, forging new collaborations, and presenting ideas that point the way toward the future of molecular neurobiology. It is this kind of interaction, with so many great minds coming together, that allows for progress to be made in understanding complicated biology such as the workings of the human brain.
The resulting article is available online for now and going to be published in Neuron, a high-profile scientific journal, on the 16th of November.
Since April 2021, Oxford University's KAVLI Institute for Nanoscience Discovery is proudly serving as a hub for research groups from seven different departments spanning both the medical and physical sciences, including Professor Elena Seiradake's group from the Department of Biochemistry.