Ipsen: Second Symposium on Biological Complexity
The second annual symposium of the series "Biological complexity" will highlight recent advances in interdisciplinary neuroscience, toward the understanding of the influence of gene regulation in circuit function and behavior in health and diseases (e.g., Rett syndrome, autism, addiction, memory disorders). The main topics of the symposium intend to define the mechanisms that provide genes with the ability to regulate the development and function of neural circuits and how these circuits then control behavior. The symposium is held from 10 to 13 January 2008 in the Salk Institute.
The aim of this meeting is to seek answers to some of the most provokating questions regarding the molecular mechanisms that govern behavior, the impact of genetics on behavior, the role of epigenetic factors, the understanding of psychiatric disorders…
Making integrative connections across the different levels of perception and function is one of the foremost challenges in understanding the brain. Recently, neuroscientists have begun to make substantial progress on these difficult questions, such as determining how chromatin regulation contributes to depression, or how genetic variation between individuals influences susceptibility to psychiatric disorders.
The meeting will cover 5 fields: motor systems, sensory systems, affective behaviors, human disease, and memory. Each session is chaired by a renowned scientist. Three laureates of the Nobel Prize Several will give lectures: Richard Axel (Columbia University), Eric Kandel (Columbia University) and Susumo Tonegawa (MIT) will present at the symposium Ten of the speakers are members of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, in particular Jean-Pierre Changeux, Professor at the Collège de France and at the Institut Pasteur (France).
Last year, the theme of the symposium was transcription factors that control gene expression and to that extent, are critical and complex but their understanding could lead to the discovery of drugs using therapeutic and medical research.
La Fondation Ipsen
Established in 1983 under the aegis of the Fondation de France, the mission of La Fondation Ipsen is to contribute to the development and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The long-standing action of La Fondation Ipsen is aimed at furthering the interaction between researchers and clinical practitioners, which is indispensable due to the extreme specialisation of these professions. The ambition of La Fondation Ipsen is not to offer definitive knowledge, but to initiate a reflection about the major scientific issues of the forthcoming years. It has developed an important international network of scientific experts who meet regularly at meetings known as Colloques Médecine et Recherche, dedicated to six main themes: Alzheimer’s disease, neurosciences, longevity, endocrinology, the vascular tree and cancer. In 2007, La Fondation Ipsen started three new series of meetings in partnership with: on the one hand the Salk Institute and Nature magazine focused on Biological Complexity, on the second hand with Nature magazine on Emergence and Convergence, the last series being with Cell magazine and the Massachusetts General Hospital titled Exciting Biologies. Since its beginning, La Fondation Ipsen has organised more than 90 international conferences, published 65 volumes with renowned publishers and 193 issues of Alzheimer Actualités. It has also awarded dozens of prizes and grants.