V Neurobiology meeting of the Mexican Society for Biochemistry

Marisela Morales is a Mexican neuroscientist specializing in the neurobiology of drug addiction. She is a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health of the United States.  Dr. Morales investigates the molecules, cells, and neuronal pathways central to the neurobiology of drug addiction. She applies anatomical, cell molecular, cell biological, and electrophysiological experimental approaches. Her laboratory's research focuses on two issues: what is the brain circuitry through which addictive drugs have their habit-forming actions, and what are the neuroadaptations in this circuitry that accompany the transition from recreational to compulsive drug-taking. 

Conference title: 

“Co-release of different neurotransmitters, unanticipated types of neurotransmission and future challenges”

Lourdes Massieu studied Biology (1981-1985) at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and obtained a PhD in Biomedical Sciences with an orientation in Neuroscience in 1994. From 1989 to 1992, she carried out a research stay at Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz in Basel, Switzerland, where she studied the effects of glutamate receptor antagonists on excitotoxic injury. She became an associate researcher at the Neuroscience Division of the Instituto de Fisiología Celular (UNAM) in 1994, where she has been a full professor since 2008. Her work centers on the mechanisms of neuronal death associated with acute brain injury in in vitro and in vivo rodent models and the mechanisms underlying the protective effects of ketone bodies. Lately, her work has been focused on stress responses like endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagy and their role on cell death and survival. She has mentored 36 students, published 78 scientific papers, and received more than 4000 citations. She has been awarded several distinctions, including the Annual Prize in Epilepsy from the Secretary of Health and PUIS-UNAM in 1991, the Luis Gallardo Ayala Prize for the Promotion of Research on Huntington's disease from PUIS-UNAM and the Mexican Association for Huntington’s disease in 2003, the Prize Miguel Alemán Valdés for Medical Research from the Miguel Alemán Valdés Foundation in 2017, and the Prize CANIFARMA, from the National Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry in 2022.

Conference title: 

“Ricardo Tapia”

Henriette van Praag received her Ph.D. from Tel-Aviv University (Israel). She obtained postdoctoral training at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, NJ, followed by a position as a staff scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, CA. Dr. van Praag started her own research group at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore in 2007. She moved her laboratory to Florida Atlantic University in 2018. She is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and FAU Brain Institute, and serves as co-Editor-in-Chief for the journal Brain Plasticity 

Conference title: 

“The role of exercise in adult hippocampal neurogenesis and memory function”

Dr. Ana María Estrada-Sánchez is an assistant professor at the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICYT) located in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. She earned her Ph.D. degree from the Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and completed postdoctoral training at Indiana University and the University of California Los Angeles. In 2019, Dr. Estrada joined the IPICYT and is currently leading a research group that focuses on investigating the functional relationship between neurons and astrocytes in pathological and neurodegenerative conditions. Her research group studies conditions such as Huntington's disease, pharmacological models of schizophrenia, and the effects of a high-fat diet on the brain, using a combination of behavioral, electrophysiological, in vivo imaging, and molecular biology techniques. Her research work has been recognized by national and international agencies such as the Society for Neuroscience, the International Brain Research Organization, and the Society for Neurochemistry. 

Conference title: 

"The miniscope: a tool that allows us to see the brain's functioning"

Dr. Pavel Rueda is a senior researcher at the Institute of Neurobiology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His research lines aim to understand the circuits and neural computations underlying the learning and execution of automatic movements and motor habits. He studied psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of UNAM and later carried out doctoral studies in the Biomedical Sciences PhD program of the same university. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Cellular Physiology of UNAM and a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, ​​Spain and at the Mediterranean Neurobiology Institute in Marseille, France. He has published more than thirty per reviewed articles in indexed

international journals and he is a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers with level 2. 

Conference title: 

“Identifying and modifying neural circuits and their function with optogenetics”

Dr. Perla Moreno-Castilla is a neuroscientist specialized in the neurobiology of memory in aging, with a bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical-Biological Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). She did her postdoctoral training at the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health in the United States (NIA-NIH), and currently is head of the Cognitive Resilience Laboratory in the Center for Research on Aging of Cinvestav in Mexico City.

Conference title: 

"Fiber Photometry"

Dr. Mónica López-Hidalgo is an Associate Professor at ENES-Jurquilla, UNAM. Her group is focused on understanding neuron-glia interactions in cognitive processes and how these are affected during aging. We make use of cutting-edge techniques such as calcium imaging in freely moving animals, chemogenetics, electrophysiology, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, in combination with behavioral tasks. In 2018 she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science.

Conference title: 

“Advantages, limitations and challenges of calcium imaging”

Dr. Yazmín Ramiro Cortés is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Cellular Physiology of UNAM and part of the National System of Researchers in Mexico. She studied Biology at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), completed her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the Institute of Cellular Physiology of the UNAM and subsequently, she did a postdoctoral stay at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and the Champalimaud Foundation in Portugal in the laboratory of Dr. Inbal Israely. In 2014, she joined the Institute of Cellular Physiology, where she is also in charge of providing the service for the use and management of the two-photon microscope. Her laboratory studies the neuronal bases of the autism spectrum disorder, through the analysis of in vivo neuronal activity and the study of the morphological changes of individual synapses. 

Conference title: 

“Two-photon microscopy and its applications in Neuroscience”

He is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He obtained a Bachelor's degree in Physics from UNAM and a Ph. D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. He is a specialist in radio astronomy, a technique which he pioneered in Mexico and with which he studies the birth and youth of stars and planets.

His work and that of other Mexican researchers constitute a core part of the modern conception of how stars and planets are formed. His works, around 500, have received more than 25,000 references in the specialized literature. He has received the National (Mexico) Science Award and the Bruno Rossi Award from the American Astronomical Society, among other recognitions. He is a member of El Colegio Nacional, the institution whose 40 members bring together the most distinguished representatives of the sciences, arts, and humanities of Mexico. In 2021 he received the Jansky Lectureship, an honor established by the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory to recognize every year outstanding contributions to the advancement of radio astronomy. 

Conference title: 

“Discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope”

Conference title: 

“In search of criticality in brain research”

Dr. Elena Blanco-Suarez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Neurological Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol (UK), followed by postdoctoral training in Molecular Neurobiology at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA. The focus of her lab is to understand the region-specific mechanisms by which astrocytes regulate synaptic plasticity in health and in response to injury. Her work is currently funded by the Career Development Award and the Innovative Project Award by American Heart Association. In addition to her research, she is committed to science communication and education for which she was awarded the Next Generation Award in 2018 by the Society for Neuroscience, and named finalist of the Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) in 2021.

Conference title: 

“Astrocyte-mediated Plasticity: a Path to Recovery from Injury”

Dr. Mónica López-Hidalgo is an Associate Professor at ENES-Jurquilla, UNAM. Her group is focused on understanding neuron-glia interactions in cognitive processes and how these are affected during aging. We make use of cutting-edge techniques such as calcium imaging in freely moving animals, chemogenetics, electrophysiology, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, in combination with behavioral tasks. In 2018 she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science.

Conference title: 

“Astrocytes are important players in vibrotactile discrimination”

She is head of the Neuro-Glia Networks Lab at the Cajal Institute (CSIC). Our interest is focused on the study of the biological properties that govern neuron-astrocyte interactions in the Central Nervous System (CNS). We use cutting-edge techniques in Neurosciences, such as in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology; calcium imaging techniques and two photon microscopy; and optogenetic and chemogenetic techniques to unmask the specific roles of astrocytes in synaptic transmission. Our goal is to understand the contribution of astrocytes to the information processing by neural circuits and the impact that neuron-astrocyte signaling has on different brain functions, either in physiological conditions as in different brain pathologies.

Conference title: 

“Dysfunctional serotonergic neuron-astrocyte signaling in depressive-like states”

Dr. Susana Castro-Obregón obtained all her education at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She received her BS degree in Basic Biochemical Research, her MS degree in Biotechnology and her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology, studying programmed cell death during mouse development. As a Pew Latin American Fellow she trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California, studying the molecular basis for neuronal vulnerability during neurodegeneration. She was appointed staff research investigator at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California, USA, where she became interested in understanding the biological basis for the wide range of variation in lifespan and aging rates in mammals. Under an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship she was a visiting scientist at the Max Plank Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. She is principal investigator at the Institute for Cell Physiology at UNAM. Her group uses a comparative biology approach to study the relationship between developmental biology and aging in mammalian species.

Conference title: 

Research opportunities in Germany, “Research in Germany supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation”

Kenneth W. Witwer is an associate professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. As nominated President-Elect of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV), Witwer previously served as Secretary General and Executive Chair of Science and Meetings of the society. His laboratory studies extracellular vesicles (EVs), noncoding and extracellular RNA (exRNA), and enveloped viruses, including HIV and SARS-CoV-2. Witwer is a member of the Richman Family Precision Medicine Center of Excellence in Alzheimer's Disease, has advised the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US National Institutes of Health, and is an associate editor of the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles. 

Conference title: 

“Extracellular vesicles and the brain: promises made, kept, and broken”

Dr. Verderio’s research is oriented towards understanding how activation of microglia influences the propagation of synaptic dysfunction and neurodegeneration in the brain. Specifically, she recently tested the hypothesis that reactive microglia participate to neurodegeneration through the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs), which propagate synaptic alterations among neurons, by delivering to neurons miRNAs that target synaptic proteins or misfolded proteins that affect neuron viability. EVs constitute a young and interdisciplinary area of research in intercellular communication and emerge as a hot topic in neuroscience with potentially high future impact. As a neurobiologist throughout the last 25 years, she has characterized mechanisms of secretion in neurons and glia and studied how glia modulate neurotransmission. 

Conference title: 

“Microglial EVs travelling along dendrites and axons: implication in synaptic pruning and transynaptic spreading of pathological signals”

Dr. Martínez completed a Bachelor's degree in Basic Biomedical Research and obtained a Ph.D.  at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); then he trained as postdoc at the School of Medicine of Harvard University. He is currently a Medical Sciences Researcher, working in the Extracellular Vesicles and Cellular Communication laboratory of the National Institute for Genomic Medicine of Mexico. Since 2015, he has collaborated in the research lines of Genomics of neurodegenerative diseases and Proteomics, encompassing projects aimed at the search for biomarkers, understanding the functional role of exosomes in degenerative diseases, and characterizing the genetic bases of Parkinson's disease. 

Conference title: 

“Molecular characterization of extracellular vesicles derived from neurodegenerative disease models”

Full Professor and Head of the Developmental Neurobiology Laboratory at CIBIMI. She completed her Bachelor's in Biomedical Research at the Faculty of Medicine, UNAM, and graduated with honors from the Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program at the same University. She has been a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI) since 2012. From 2012to 2017, she was invited to occupy several summer stays positions as a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, as part of Dr. Anthony E. Kline's research group. She has delivered various national and international presentations, including a keynote speech at the International Neurotrauma Society Meeting and a plenary lecture at the International Probiotics Conference, among others. She has received several awards such as the 'Excellence in Scientific Research' award from the IMSS Research Coordination, the 'Biocodex Microbiota Foundation' national award, the 'Women in World Neuroscience' award, the 'Alan Faden' award from the Neurotrauma Society, the 'Hugo Aréchiga' award from the Grass Foundation, and she was named a 'Miledi Member' of the Society for Neuroscience. Since 2015, she has served as a member of the editorial board of the BMC Neuroscience Journal. 

Conference title: 

“Role of the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis on cognitive recovery after a traumatic brain injury”

Dr. Elvia Ramírez-Carrillo is a PhD in biological sciences from UNAM with two postdocs, one at the UAM (2016-2018, CONACyT) and the other at the Faculty of Psychology at UNAM (2018-2020, DGAPA). She is currently a Researcher for Mexico (IxM) of the CONAHCyT in the Faculty of Psychology of the UNAM. Her research focuses on different aspects and applications of evolutionary ecology and data science. She also worked at CIDEA (Food Research and Development Center) doing a statistical characterization (data mining and networks) of productive and food systems in El Alto Mezquital and La Huasteca Hidalguense (Mexico) to improve evidence-based policy. Later, she was also a researcher associated with a CONACyT project on comprehensive health, both ecosystemic and human, from a perspective of the intestinal microbiota and the gut-brain axis. 

Conference title: 

“Potential loss of brain antifragility under different lifestyles induced by the microbiota-gut-brain axis”

Dr. Alejandra Ochoa is a biomedical researcher specialized on the host-pathogen interactions, mainly in the innate immune response of mammals regulated by different immunomodulatory molecules. She is actually, the General Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation of the State of Michoacán de Ocampo and professor and researcher at the Veterinary Medicine Faculty from Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Michoacán, México. Graduated in Basic Biomedical Research from the National University Autonomous of México (UNAM, 1995), Master in Sciences in Physiological Sciences from the UNAM, México (1998) and Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at Neurobiology Institute of UNAM (2002). Prof. Ochoa has more that90 publications in journals from the Journal Citation Reports(1800 cites). She is the responsible of many grants and research projects from international and national funding agencies. She received a grant from the International Center for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering for the study of immunomodulatory properties of plant antimicrobial peptides. To date, she has trained 22 undergraduates, 20 master and 11 doctorate students. She is member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and has been recognized as a National Researcher level III by the National System of Researchers (CONAHCyT-México). In2017, she was awarded with the State Science and Technology Prize for her scientific work from the gender perspective and from 2015-2022 was the Director of the Multidisciplinary Center of Studies in Biotechnology from Veterinary Medicine Faculty from Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Michoacán, México. 

Conference title: 

“Hormones, innate immune response and persistent infections”

She holds a tenure-track position as a group leader at the MELIS department of the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), where she leads the Microbiome Research Group. Her research is dedicated to exploring the role of the human microbiome in mental health and the social transmission of the microbiome. With a background in Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, she obtained her BSc from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, and her MSc from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. During her doctoral studies in the Raes Lab at VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium, she delved into the microbiota-gut-brain axis. Her focus was on characterizing the microbial production and degradation of neuroactive compounds in metagenomic data. She conducted the first population-level study linking the gut microbiome to anxiety and depression (Valles-Colomer et al, Nat. Microbiology 2019). This groundbreaking study earned recognition as a milestone paper in human microbiota research in "Nature milestones 2019" and received a recommendation from F1000Prime. Towards the end of her PhD, she developed a keen interest in understanding how health-and disease-associated bacteria are acquired. As an EMBO postdoctoral fellow, she joined Nicola Segata’s Lab in CIBIO at the University of Trento, Italy. Her postdoctoral research focused on investigating how human-associated microorganisms are transmitted among individuals and spread in populations, utilizing strain-level profiling metagenomic approaches. She assessed person-to-person transmission of the human microbiome through large-scale strain-level metagenomic profiling (Valles-Colomer et al, Nature 2023). 

Conference title: 

"The neuroactive potential of the gut microbiome and its social transmission"

Dr. Clorinda Arias is MD, PhD fromthe National Autonomous University of Mexico.She obtained a post-doctoral fellow at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York working in the Department of Neuropathology on the role of the balance between protein kinases and phosphatases relevant to undestand the pathological phosphorylation of the tau protein involved in Alzheimer ́s disease, a topic on which she has focused her research work for more than 30 years. Dr Arias had a one-year sabbatical leave at the Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona in 2012, working on the role of Wnt signaling molecules relevant for Alzheimer's disease and involved in neuronal plasticity and neuronal death. To date, she has published 80 international scientific articles, in addition to book chapters and publications for scientific dissemination.For her work she has received nearly 3,500 cites and has obtained some awards for her work in Mexico such as the Basic Research on Dementia(Ministry of Health), 1996; Canifarma, 2021 and the Moises Itzkowich Alzheimer Prize /UNAM Foundation, 2022.Dr Arias has participated in many national and international meetings as speaker and is frequently invited to speak in scientific outreach broadcasts. She has been secretary/treasurer of the Mexican Society of Biochemistry and founded and consolidated the Neurobiology branch of the same society.

Conference title: 

“Involvement of lipids in Alzheimer's Disease pathology”

Dulce Papy-Garcia is a Franco-Mexican researcher currently Director of the Frenc Research Unit “Glycobiology Cell and Tissue Repair and Regeneration” (Gly-CRRET), Scientific Director of the Glycomix Platform for structural and functional analysis of Glycans, and Professor of Biochemistry and Glycosciences at the University Paris Est Créteil. Dr Papy-García graduated as Chemistry Farmacobiologist (QFB) at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hildalgo, Mexico. She then moved to Japan to obtain MS and PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences/Glycosciences at Tokushima Bunri University and then to France/UK, where she worked as research fellow at ENSCT (Fr) and at the Central Veterinary Laboratory at Weybridge (UK). She was permanently established in France by becoming Associated-Professor and then Full Professor at the University Paris Est Créteil. Her main line of research is the chemistry, biochemistry, and physiology of proteoglycans, their biosynthetic machinery, and in the study of their implications in the molecular mechanisms leading to pathology and neurodegenerative diseases.

Conference title: 

“Specialized heparan sulfates in the vulnerability of cells to autonomously develop tau pathology”

Dr. Maria-del-Carmen Cardenas-Aguayo is a Professorinthe Department of Physiology at the School ofMedicine, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She holds a Master'sand aPh.D.inMolecular Biomedicine from CINVESTAV and has enriched her academic journey with twoPostdoctoralfellowships in the United States. One of these fellowships took place at the Dementia Research Center ofthe "Nathan Kline Institute" in Orangeburg, NY, and the other at the“New York State Institute for BasicResearch in Developmental Disabilities”in Staten Island, NY. Her expertise has also been shared as aVisiting Professor at CINVESTAV-IPN.Currently, Dr. Cardenas-Aguayo is recognized as aNational Researcher Level I by the Mexican NationalResearch Council(SNII I). Her academic portfolio includes 25 international scientific publications andsignificantteaching background. She served as the Research Coordinator of the Physiology Departmentatthe UNAM School of Medicine from March 2020 to April 2022 and presently holds the position of Full-Time Professorlevel"A" within the same department,having21 years ofexperience inteaching. Hercommitment to educating future medical professionalsbegan in 1994 when she started teachingPhysiology. She taughtthe same subject to medical studentsat the University of "Staten Island," NY, USA,a role she fulfilled from 2009 to 2011.At UNAM, Dr. Cardenas-Aguayo also plays a vital role as a mentor forthe AFINESundergraduatestudentprogram of the Faculty of Medicine andprovides guidance to graduate students. Her dedication toacademia extends to directing Doctoral, Master's, andbachelor’sTheses.Dr. Maria-del-Carmen Cardenas-Aguayo leads the Laboratory of Cellular Reprogramming and Chronic-Degenerative Diseases, focusing on investigating the intricate molecular mechanisms involved inneurodegeneration. Her research is dedicated to the search for therapeutic targets and biomarkers forAlzheimer's Disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), and Niemann-Pick, as well as the validation ofnew drugs with therapeutic potential in neurons obtained from the differentiation of induced pluripotentstem cellsfromneurodegenerative diseasespatientsreprogramed somatic cells. 

Conference title: 

“Exploring Novel Avenues for Identifying Biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias”

Luc Buée is a French scientist (Directeur de Recherche au CNRS-DRCE CNRS), Director of the Lille Neuroscience & Cognition Research Centre https://lilncog.eu/ and Head of the Inserm laboratory «Alzheimer & Tauopathies» at the University of Lille, France. Located on the Lil le hospital campus, his laboratory belongs to the Lille Centre of Excellence in Neurodegenerative disorders (LiCEND) and is also part of the LabEx DISTALZ (National consortium on Alzheimer's disease). Luc Buée has been working on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders for more than thirty years (>300 articles in Pubmed). He began his work on the role of proteoglycans in Alzheimer's disease during his doctoral training at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York. He made some of the pioneering neuropathology ical observations on microvasculature abnormalities in neurodegenerative disorders. He was involved in the initial biochemical characterisation of tau aggregates in certain neurodegenerative disorders (barcode tauopathies). He then developed experimental m odels to better understand the role of post-translational modifications in tau aggregation and secretion. These experimental models are now widely used to evaluate therapeutic strategies for tauopathies (immunotherapy, small molecules, non-drug therapy...). With his team, he has also discovered numerous non-microtubular functions of the tau protein. He is currently working on the pathophysiological consequences of neurofibrillary degeneration and their links with amyloid pathology and inflammation in Alzhei mer's disease. His group was/is in different international consortia.

Luc Buée is also involved in different scientific advisory boards, scientific program and operating committees (National committee of Universities-Neuroscience board, Janssen Horizon, Rainwater Charitable Foundation, AD/PD™, AAIC...). He is the organizer of theEurotau meetings.

He has received different awards: Prix Claude Pompidou for Alzheimer's disease research (2013), Grand Prix Spécial des Sciences par la société des Sciences, de l’ Agriculture et des Arts de Lille (2014) and Prix Bernadette et Pierre DUBAN 2020 #FRM for Alzheimer's and related diseases. He is a foreign member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium.

Conference title: 

“Prion-like tau propagation in Alzheimer’s disease and tauopathies: consequences on diagnosis and therapy”

Dr. Luis Miguel Gutiérrez studied Medicine at the Mexican Faculty of Medicine of La Salle University in Mexico City (1980) and completed his specialization in Internal Medicine at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition "Salvador Zubirán" - UNAM (1985). He obtained his specialization in Geriatrics at the University of Grenoble, France (1988) and completed a Master's degree in Aging Biology at the University of Paris VII in 1997. He holds a doctorate in medical sciences with a focus on public health and epidemiology from the University of Bordeaux. He is the founder and head of the Geriatrics department at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition "Salvador Zubirán" in Mexico City for 20 years. He is the founding Director of the Institute of Geriatrics at the National Institutes of Health in Mexico. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics. He has been a visiting professor at the European Academy of Aging Medicine and at the Universities of Sherbrooke in Canada, Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and the University of Grenoble in France. He is a founding member and part of the Steering Committee of the Latin American Academy of Medicine for the Elderly (ALMA).

Conference title: 

"Bridging Geroscience and Neurobiology: Translational Approaches and Practical Examples"

Dr. Emilio Galván is a distinguished researcher at Cinvestav 3C and holds a prestigious SNI II designation. He serves as the Coordinator of the Master's program in Neuropharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Galván is deeply involved in neurophysiology research, particularly focusing on the hippocampus, exploring synaptic transmission and plasticity in both physiological and pathological conditions. His notable work includes studying cortical-hippocampal information transfer alterations associated with systemic infections during pregnancy. Dr. Galván obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from UNAM and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Neurosciences, Cinvestav's Department of Biophysics and Neurosciences, and the Cajal Institute in Spain. His recent publications contribute significantly to our understanding of hippocampal neuron excitability and synaptic properties, especially in the context of aging and maternal immune activation.

Conference title: 

"The Neurophysiology of the Aging Hippocampus"

Dr. Perla Moreno-Castilla is a neuroscientist specialized in the neurobiology of memory in aging, with a bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical-Biological Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). She did her postdoctoral training at the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health in the United States (NIA-NIH), and currently is head of the Cognitive Resilience Laboratory in the Center for Research on Aging of Cinvestav in Mexico City.

Conference title: 

"Mechanisms of Cognitive Resilience in Normal Aging and Disease"

Felipe Court, a Santiago-based scientist, obtained a Ph.D. from Edinburgh University and later performed an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milano, focusing on local protein synthesis in axons and demyelinating conditions in the peripheral nervous system (PNS).

In 2008, Felipe established his lab at Catholic University, studying mRNA transfer between glia and neurons, and mechanisms of axonal degeneration for neuroprotection. Transitioning to Universidad Mayor in 2016, he founded the Center for Integrative Biology, investigating aging effects on central and peripheral innervation and neurodegenerative conditions.

Felipe's research spans both the CNS and PNS, using mouse models to explore age-related changes in axons and glial cells, in the context of brain function, regenerative mechanisms, and neurodegenerative conditions. His groundbreaking work identified necroptosis as a trigger for axonal degeneration, offering insights into its role in age-related cognitive decline, Alzheimer's (AD), and Parkinson's (PD). His lab shown that inhibiting necroptosis, mitigates age-related cognitive decline and loss of functionality in neurodegenerative conditions.

In the PNS, Felipe's laboratory demonstrated that Schwann cells, PNS glial cells, become senescent with aging and chronic nerve denervation, inhibiting axonal regeneration. Eliminating these senescent cells enhances nerve regeneration and functionality, suggesting potential clinical applications.

Conference title: 

"Necroptosis Inhibition as a Geroprotective Strategy for Age-Dependent Brain Dysfunction and Cognitive Impairment"

Dr. Frank Sengpiel studied Biology at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany (1984-1989). He then did his PhD in Physiology at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Colin Blakemore (1990-1994) and stayed in Oxford as a Junior Research Fellow at Magdalen College until 1996. Dr. Sengpiel then did a post-doc with Tobias Bonhoeffer at the Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology near Munich in Germany (1996-2000). In 2000 he moved to Cardiff University where he has been Professor of Neuroscience since 2007, and Head of the Neuroscience Division since 2015. For more than 30 years, he has been interested in visual cortex plasticity and binocular information processing. More recently, his lab has been working on the integration of visual and locomotor responses in the retrosplenial cortex and in the formation of visuospatial memory engrams in that area. They employ two-photon calcium imaging as well as mini endoscopes to record neuronal activity in awake, behaving mice.

Conference title: 

“What the retrosplenial cortex does: visual responses and visuospatial memory engrams”