Death In Development

The 24th annual meeting of the Washington, D.C.-based Society for Neuroscience, to be held November 13 to 18 in Miami Beach, Fla., is likely to be the largest conference in the association's history, according to society officials. Almost 15,000 of the society's 23,000 members are expected to attend. The event will offer a mixed bag of topics in about 17 symposia and 15 lectures, in addition to various workshops, courses, panel discussions, and more than 10,000 posters and slides. "Our meeting is unique in that it draws a large proportion of society members," remarks Larry Squire, the current president as well as a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, and a staff research scientist at the San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC). "It would be hard to pick any special themes of interest--we have everything from molecular and cellular research to cognitive studies." (See accompanying list for a sampling of topics.) Squire's own area of expertise--the biology of memory--is the subject of a special presidential symposium, and by itself demonstrates the scope of the neurosciences. The two- hour session will include discussions on genetic, regulatory, and chemical aspects of memory. This year the symposium commemorates Walle J. Nauta, a noted neuroscientist from Harvard University who died earlier this year, shortly after being named the winner of the National Academy of Sciences Award in the Neurosciences (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, April 18, 1994, page 1). In addition to the symposium, there will be three special presidential lectures, including one on the evolution of the brain by Harvard University evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Scheduled for 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday, November 16, this lecture will be simultaneously videocast to a second room to accommodate attendees unable to fit in the lecture theater. A particularly "hot" area of neuroscience research nowadays, say many scientists, is developmental neurobiology--the study of how nerve cells differentiate in the embryo and achieve their final form. Several sessions at the meeting, including one of the presidential lectures, will discuss advances in this subdiscipline. The featured speaker, H. Robert Horvitz, a professor of biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will discuss the role of programmed cell death--also called apoptosis--in development. "A great number of cells die in the course of normal development; the question is why and how," says Horvitz. His studies on the phenomenon in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans revealed that the genes and proteins involved in the programmed death of nerve cells in this organism were similar to certain genes and proteins found in humans (J. Yuan et al., Cell, 75:641-52, 1993). "It is [my] hypothesis that the pathway of programmed cell death is highly conserved between nematodes and humans," he adds. Horvitz will also talk about the applications of his work in understanding such neurodegenerative diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. A regular feature at the society's annual conferences has been a forum or panel discussion organized by its Committee on Animals in Research. The subject is particularly important to the society because of the significant amount of neuroscience research that uses animals as experimental models, according to committee chairman Stuart Zola-Morgan, a professor of psychiatry at UC-San Diego and a research scientist at the San Diego VAMC. This year the discussions will focus on two issues. One is public opinion on the use of animals in research, including polling data showing how men's and women's views vary on this subject. The other issue is a recent strategy implemented by animal rights groups to promote their cause, whereby they align themselves with women's groups, targeting perceived parallels between the use and treatment of animals in research and the exploitation of women. Panelists include Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, a research- advocacy group based in Alexandria, Va.; Sandra Bressler, director of scientific and educational activities at the California Medical Association; and Andrea Zardetto-Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Zola-Morgan will act as the moderator for the session. Animal research will also be touched on during a workshop for high school students to be held at the conference. "We feel an obligation to explain the importance of animal [models] in research, particularly with the resurgence of animal rights concerns in schools," says Squire. A special workshop entitled "Educating your legislators or suffering the consequences" is scheduled this year, to introduce the society's members to the process of law-making and the dispensation of research funds by Congress. "The workshop will talk about how Congress deals with various scientific and funding issues, and how scientists can affect those decisions," says workshop presenter Frankie Trull, vice president for government affairs at Capitol Associates Inc., a government-relations consulting firm in Washington, D.C. "What kind of funding goes to a particular type of research depends on the importance given to it by Congress," she notes, "and the best option for a scientist is to speak directly to Congress and arm them with relevant knowledge so that they can make informed decisions. "This workshop will deal with some of the dos and don'ts-- don't argue, do express yourself clearly, and do follow up," advises Trull. For more information on the society's meeting, contact Joseph Carey or Julie Ziegler at the Society for Neuroscience, 11 Dupont Circle, N.W., Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 462-6688. A computerized Program Search System listing the title, author and affiliation for each abstract along with the date and time of presentation can be obtained ahead of time, for a fee, along with registration.

Death In Development

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Neeraja Sankaran

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October 1994

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