UNE students, faculty and staff present at Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago

14 people from the Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences traveled to Chicago for the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting, a national gathering that attracted more than 28,000 people from around the world. The Society for Neuroscience is a society for researchers studying the brain or nervous system. It is the largest neuroscience society in the world, with around 40,000 members.

Students, faculty and staff presented on a variety of research topics. Edward Bilsky, Ph.D., vice president for research and scholarship, professor of Pharmacology and Michael Burman, Ph.D., associate professor and K-12 outreach coordinator, reported on the growth of UNE’s K-12 Neuroscience Outreach program. Burman also presented his recent laboratory findings relating to anxiety development in adolescent rats.

Ling Cao, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, and her Ph.D. student Virginia McLane ‘16, B.S., each gave a poster presentation on the neuropathic pain research being done in the lab. Tamara King, Ph.D., associate professor, and her lab manager Ian Imbert ’12, B.S., each co-presented a poster with two undergraduates from their lab, Kristina Carlson ’16 and Meredith Walker ‘16, who are studying breakthrough cancer pain and osteoarthritis, respectively.

Derek Molliver, Ph.D., associate professor, and his laboratory technician Brian Dragoo, B.S, presented a poster on their work with flotillin-1 (membrane-associated scaffolding protein expressing in the nervous system) in sensory neuron signal transduction. Ian Meng, Ph.D., director of the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) for the Study of Pain and Sensory Function, professor in the department of Biomedical Sciences, gave a poster presentation on his collaborative project with Niigata University, in Niigata, Japan.