Congratulations to Mark Zylka, Nate Sowa and Bonnie-Taylor Blake for publishing the cover article in the October 9 issue of Neuron (www.neuron.org). In their paper, they found the transmembrane isoform of Prostatic Acid Phosphatase (PAP) plays a critical role in pain mechanisms. PAP is expressed in pain-sensing neurons, encodes the classic histochemical marker known as … Continued

The 9th Annual UNC Neuroscience Symposium was held Thursday, Oct 16th at the Carolina Club with more than 225 neuroscientists from UNC and other Triangle institutions in attendance. Catherine Dulac, PhD, Sebastian Seung, PhD, Marc Raichle, MD, and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD were the speakers at this year’s event.

We are pleased to announce the 9th Annual UNC Neuroscience Symposium will be held on Thursday, October 16, 2008 from 9am until 1pm. The event will again be held at the Carolina Club on UNC Campus. We invite you all to attend! 9th Annual UNC Neuroscience Symposium 9:00am – 9:50am Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD Professor and … Continued

Dr. Larysa Pevny will serve as a permanent member on the NIH Neurogenesis and Cell Fate Study Section. This study section reviews applications concerned with the initial formation of cells in the developing nervous system, as well as cell specification, determination, and differentiation. Areas to be included are: regulation of the cell cycle; induction of … Continued

Dr. Franck Polleux was elected co-chair of the next Neural Development Gordon Conference. This is one of the most popular scientific conferences in the field of Developmental Neurobiology. It usually takes place at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island and is held every other year (next one in 2010). The conference is an interactive … Continued

The students of the Neurobiology Curriculum would like to invite everyone to the 2008 Pierre Morell Research Day on Friday, August 29th. There will be a seminar at 12pm from by Dr. Rachel Wong in G202 MBRB, followed by a catered lunch held on the 2nd floor of MBRB. The student poster presentations will take … Continued

The UNC Neuroscience Center has been awarded a five-year, $3,650,000 Center Grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The Center Grant supports neuroscience research infrastructure by funding cutting edge core facilities. The six core areas that will be supported by this award are genomics and bioinformatics, gene expression localization, BAC (Bacterial … Continued

Congratulations to Mohanish Deshmukh who recently accepted an invitation to serve as a member of the International and Cooperative Projects 1 Study Section, Center for Scientific Review. His term will last from July 1, 2008 until June 30, 2012. This selection was based on Dr. Deshmukh’s achievements in his scientific discipline, and recognizes his successful … Continued

Dr Polleux’s group in the Neuroscience Center has recently published an article in the Public Access journal PLoS Biology (june 2008 issue) reporting the critical role of Netrin-1 signaling in the establishment of the topography of thalamocortical projections. The first author on this study is Ashton Powell (left), a student from the UNC Neurobiology Curriculum … Continued

The Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize was presented to Huda Y. Zoghbi, MD from Baylor College of Medicine. Dean Bill Roper presented Dr. Zoghbi with a plaque and a cash prize of $10,000. Dr. Zoghbi gave a lecture entitled “Rett Syndrome: from genomes to epigenomes and neuropsychiatric conditions” to a crowd of 200 or more yesterday in … Continued