SAN ANTONIO (July 21, 2016) – The University of Texas at San Antonio and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio are hosting the San Antonio Life Science (SALSI) Neuroscience Translational Neuroimmunology Symposium taking place on Friday, July 22 at UTSA Main Campus. The symposium aims to highlight cutting edge research within the neuroimmunology field, promote collaboration among the various subfields of neuroscience, and allow faculty and students to explore the diverse research being conducted.
Neuroimmunology combines the study of neuroscience and immunology. Researchers examine and seek to understand the interactions between the two complex systems, particularly studying their role in autoimmune disorders and injury response.
“As we strengthen and expand our brain health capabilities at both institutions, this symposium gives our local research community a chance to share research updates and results. By inviting peers from across the country, we can leverage our findings with theirs, and create some new research collaborations,” said Bernard Arulanandam, Ph.D., interim vice president for research at UTSA.
The keynote lecture will be given by Katerina Akassoglou, Ph.D., from the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Akassoglou has pioneered studies in the investigation of vascular and immune mechanisms in neurologic diseases, and in particular the role of the blood clotting factors in CNS autoimmunity, trauma, and neurodegeneration. Her aim is to understand the mechanisms that control the communication between the brain, immune and vascular systems with the ultimate goal to design novel therapies for neurologic diseases—and in particular, multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases. She is now a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, and a professor in the department of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also the founder and director of the Gladstone Center for In Vivo Imaging Research, associate adjunct professor of Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego, and secretary/treasurer of the molecular pharmacology division of ASPET. Dr. Akassoglou has published over 68 papers in peer-reviewed journals and she is active in several national and international organizations, editorial boards, and funding agencies.
Researchers from UT Health Science and UTSA will present along with notable guest speakers such Jonathan Savitz, Ph.D. from the Laureate Institute for Brain Research/The University of Tulsa; Katherine Serafine, Ph.D., from the department of psychology at The University of Texas at El Paso; and Pooja Singhmar, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.
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http://research.utsa.edu/event/salsineuro/