UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
Media release
International meeting of minds
The UK's largest-ever international conference on neuroendocrinology takes place in Bristol from tomorrow [August 31].
Six hundred professionals from all over the world working on how the brain controls the body in times of stress and disease will assemble for the five-day International Congress of Neuroendocrinology (ICN).
The conference, chaired by Stafford Lightman, Professor of Medicine and Director of Bristol University's Research Centre for Neuroendocrinology, will review and evaluate the most exciting developments in neuroendocrinology in both health and disease.
Neuroendocrinology covers a wide range of subjects from genetics and molecular biology, through cell and systems physiology, neuroanatomy and immunology, to clinical medicine.
The Serono Foundation for the Advancement of Medical Science is holding an international workshop in conjunction with the ICN. The meeting will explore how the vast body of information obtained from decoding the human genome can help unravel the genomic basis of physiological and behavioural processes.
Professor Lightman said: 'These events will bring together established and young researchers from all over the world and enables them to share the latest advances in the field.
'The ultimate aim of our work is to provide new understanding and novel treatments for some common and extremely debilitating conditions.'
Bristol University has an international reputation in the field of neuroendocrinology. It has recently been chosen for a major UK investment in neuroendocrinology research with the construction in Marlborough Street of the Dorothy Hodgkin Building, named after the University of Bristol's Nobel Prize-winning fifth Chancellor and due for completion in 2003.
The £18 million project, funded jointly by the University of Bristol and The Wellcome Trust, will provide state-of-the-art facilities for the University's Research Centre for Neuroendocrinology. The Centre is world-renowned, but its scientists are currently working in cramped conditions and are scattered across a number of sites that offer no scope for expansion.
The focus of the scientists' work is the way in which the brain controls the body in times of stress and disease. Their research is aimed at providing radical new approaches to the treatment of stress-related disorders, hormonal and psychiatric disease and Alzheimer's Disease.
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Email: public-relations@bristol.ac.uk
Copyright: 2002 The University of Bristol, UK
Updated: Friday, 30-Aug-2002 13:12:43 BST