5/15/2010 -> 5/24/2010

Theme:
Neurogenesis & Cell Death

Overview

The IBRO Ottawa  School had sole use of the OHRI/UOttawa Neuroscience seminar room and boardroom (Smyth Rd campus), with Bea Roberston, the Neurosci .Admin. Assistant providing full time support.  Both the space and Bea’s time (which including many days of preparatory work) was courtesy of Antoine Hakim, Neuroscience, OHRI.  Cathy Morris lined up speakers and scheduled them based on their availability.  Students were housed at U.Ottawa campus residences downtown (they were provided with bus tickets for transport).  For School sessions, Cathy Morris was present throughout (all lectures, demonstrations, workshops etc), Ante Padjen for all lectures, and Ellis Cooper and Albert Aguayo for at least half the sessions. Lecturers introduced themselves, often giving a brief account of their career trajectories – the students liked this.  Lecturers usually stayed for the talks adjacent to their own and/or stayed for lunch with the students.  From the start, students were exceptionally forthcoming with questions and commentary; only one or two found that their language difficulties were an impediment to lively participation during and after lectures and demonstrations.  The twelve students were from Argentina, Brazil (4), China, India, Mexico (2), Morocco, South Africa (2).   All had published papers, most indicated that they expected to become academics in their countries’ universities.

Students also had the opportunity to participate in the 4th Meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience (CAN) where they had presented their research in poster sessions

Faculty

N & CD lectures from U Ottawa professors (or other affiliation, when noted): 
Paul Albert, Mahmud Bani (NRC, Ottawa), Jean-Claude Béïque,  Steffany Bennett,  Ellis Cooper (McGill), Daniel Figeys, Antoine Hakim, Diane Lagace, Catherine Morris, Jagdeep Sandhu (NRC, Ottawa), Michael Schlossmacher, Patrice Smith  (Carleton U), Eve Tsai,
Cathy Tsilfidis

N & CD lectures from U Ottawa postdocs:
Marc Germain, Isabella Irrcher, Leigh Anne Swayne, Jiravat Visanuvimol

General interest lectures/workshops:
Albert Aguayo (McGill) [History of IBRO – the Canada connection]
Emily Borgelt (from Judy Illes's group, and the National Core in Neuroethics, at UBC)  
                 [Neuroethics Challenges and Cell-Based Therapies]  
Linda Cooper (McGill) [ Workshop:  Writing Scientific Articles in the Internet Era]
Ante Padjen (McGill) [What is science?]

Lab demonstrations: about 15 U Ottawa PIs (Diane Lagace, Charlie Thompson, Cathy Tsilfidis, Jean-Claude Béïque, Daniel Figeys) and/or their staff members participated.

Director:  Catherine E Morris, OHRI / U of Ottawa
Logistics:   Bea Robertson 
Support team from McGill University:  Albert Aguayo, Ellis Cooper (Treasurer), Ante Padjen and staff.

Lecture topics (in order presented –  3-5 per day)

• Adult neurogenesis. Gene therapy approaches to retinal degeneration.   Cell death and Parkinson's disease.   Cell Death: The role of oxidative stress and mitochondrial  dysfunction.
• Using neural stem/progenitor cells to repair the injured spinal cord.    Behavioral implications of adult neurogenesis.   Small vessel disease.  
• Autophagy and apoptosis – the balance.  Neurodegenerative lipidomics.   Proteomics and Lipidomics – what, how, when, why.  
• Roles of serotonin-1a receptors in depression, antidepressant therapy and neurogenesis.  
• Promoting axonal regeneration in the adult CNS by targeting  molecular signaling mechanisms.  
• Neuronal polarity in C elegans.   How channels make electrical signals and excitotoxic trouble.  Membrane blebbing and ion channel function/malfunction.     Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and neuronal channels.   Glial cells as modulators of neuronal survival.    The role of Sox2 in neurogenesis.

Demonstrations

• Use of electroretinograms to assess cell death etc in the  retina (rat and salamander models).
• PCR-based genotyping.
• Two Vessel Occlusion demonstrations
• Behavioral tests used in the context of neurogenesis research: Morris water maze and rotor rod.
• Embryonic cortical neuron dissection for tissue culture
• Prepare rat brain slice for V-clamp, I-clamp, uncaging etc
• Voltage-clamp while imaging by 2-photon microscopy (brain slice)
• Current-clamp pharmacology study (brain slice)
• A demonstration of C. elegans genetics and microscopy
• Confocal microscopy of pre-fixed preps, some hands on experience
• Tour of the genomics and lipidomics facilities.
• Chalk-talk on basic electrophysiology (Morris, Cooper)

Student presentations
During the first 3 days, all twelve students gave ~15 min (plus 15 min questions) powerpoint presentations on their work.   The students had previously presented their work as posters at the CAN meeting  --  this provided more opportunity for ongoing feedback .

Extracuricullar activities

• Banquet courtesy of the Dean of Medicine, U of Ottawa
• Lunchtime BBQ cooked by the  UOttawa Neuroscience Grad students
• Evening visit to the Bytown Market
• Guided tour visit to the Governor General’s Residence …
• “Backyard banquet” .  Local foods prepared by a young local chef was the theme for the banquet fare. 

Student elections
As is customary with IBRO Schools, on the last day the students elected Class President (Nandhu Mohan from India) and Class Secretary (Carlos Girardi from Brazil) (See the photo on the right). Each student received a certificate confirming her/his status of IBRO alumna/alumnus and a USB memory with all educational material that was also made available on the Schools Web Forum.  Many students took the stand and were heard expressing their appreciation for what they have learned - about neurogenesis, about Canada and about their peers and tutors.

Sponsors
In addition to International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) the school was sponsored by Canadian Association of Neuroscience (CAN), CIHR Institute of Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA), Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, University of Ottawa, Ottawa Health Research Institute, University of Toronto Neuroscience Program, Krembil Neuroscience Centre and National Core for Neuroethics.

Next Canadian IBRO School of Neuroscience is planned for 2011 in Quebec City.