BYNS 2017

Our first edition of Barcelona Young Neuroscientist Symposium (BYNS) was an incredible success. Here you can read a summary of what happened there. We are planning to come back on September with a new edition of BYNS. Don't miss it!

We started with the Workshop about “Open Science”, where attendees were introduced in the great variety of tools dedicated to make science more accessible and shareable. In order to illustrate the importance of Open Science, Jeroen Bosman and Bianca Kramer developed a little game in which all realized that when research groups are more prone to publish in open science journals and want to make their research accessible to the general audience, this enriches more the scientific community.

We had 11 oral presentations from PhD students and young postdocs working in different fields in neuroscience. The topics ranged from molecular basis of some neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease, to more behavioural studies and even to some new therapeutical strategies.

The Plenary lecture was given by Susana Lima, principal investigator at the Neuroethology group in the Champalimoud Centre in Lisbon. She gave a very provocative talk about the new discoveries in the neural mechanisms controlling sexual behaviour.

Finally, there was a round table of Career Development Perspectives, integrated by Muriel Arimon, Silvia Ramírez, Eleni Krupi, Elisenda Sanz and Susana Lima. These incredible women shared their career paths and experience from the PhD until their current position, either in academics, industry or education. Everyone agreed that the round table gave them a lot of motivation and encourage to keep working hard during the PhD, but also not to be afraid in changing paths or in starting something new.

Talk of Talal Fael Al-Mayhani MD, PhD - "Science in times of turmoil"

We had the honor to have a very special lecture by Dr.Talal Al-Mayhani entitled “Science in times of turmoil”, where he gracefully merged his science, his country, Syria, and his career path. Moreover, he was accompanied by two former students, also from Syria, that now are refugees in Germany. By their experiences we learned what means to be a refugee, having left their homes and professions behind, and starting again in a completely new country. It was a very memorable lecture, specially because the ability Dr. Al-Mayhani to be sincere but optimistic at the same time.

Sponsor session - ACD Biotech

We also enjoyed the talk of ACD Biotech, one of our sponsors. We are very grateful for the collaborations of different institutions and companies that made BYNS possible.

Poster sessions

Here you can find the pictures of the posters session, where more than 50 posters were held and discussed. BYNS was closed by a beer networking session at the CCCB patio, where all the attendees were able to meet each other and establish new contacts that can be very important in the future.

Neuroscience in the bar

To finish the first day, there was a social activity at a cultural center of Barcelona, where participants and general public were able to mingle and enjoy a little bit of humor, magic and music all mixed with neuroscience.

All in all, we are convinced that BYNS was an incredible victory, since we were able to mix science and fun to increase our contact network and to bring the science we all do closer. This is also an example of how an initiative starting from down can go up and organize a meeting where young neuroscientist can both attend and actively participate. This is just the beginning!! See you all in September!!!.