We congratulate David VANDAEL, Winner of the Otto Loewi Prize 2021
David Vandael started his scientific career in 2006 at the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf, where he became fascinated by pacemaker mechanisms in the brain. In 2007, he pursued with a PhD to study this complex phenomenon in the laboratory of Prof. Emilio Carbone at the University of Turin. After having established a solid biophysical basis on ion channels, in 2014 he joined the laboratory of Prof. Peter Jonas at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria. In the Jonas lab he studied synapses at the unitary level through paired patch-clamp recordings from single release terminals and postsynaptic partner neurons. The main finding of his postdoctoral work is that natural dentate gyrus granule cell activity can trigger a form of plasticity called post tetanic potentiation (PTP) at the level of the CA3 pyramidal cell. He showed that this depends on an increase in the number of presynaptic readily releasable synaptic vesicles (a vesicle engram) and that these vesicles can be stored for physiologically relevant periods of time. Moreover he discovered a unique glutamate mediated retrograde signaling mechanism that fine-tunes PTP at the mossy fiber bouton CA3 pyramidal cell synapse. He is currently (since March 2021) working as a Marie Curie fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) in the laboratory of Prof. Maarten Kole. Current research interests: At present David Vandael is studying the role of PV+ interneuron axon myelination in synaptic precision in hippocampal microcircuits. His aim is to ultimately bridge subcellular neuroscience with systems neuroscience. He is interested in finding out how interneuron axon myelination will affect sharp-wave ripple generation and therefore memory encoding. Awardees of the ANA Meeting 2021 Shirin Sharghi (University of Graz) Venkat Swaroop Achuta (LBI Rare Undiagnosed Diseases, Vienna) Marie Luise Edenhofer (Medical University of Innsbruck) Sibel Ada (Medical University of Vienna) Manfred Klöbl (Medical University of Vienna) Oral Presentation Award (EUR 100,-) Theodora Kalpachidou (Medical University of Innsbruck) Murray Bruce Reed (Medical University of Vienna) Hussein Ghareh (Medical University of Innsbruck) Konstantina Bampali (Medical University of Vienna) Arnau Ramos (Medical University of Innsbruck) Oral Presentation Awards were generously sponsored by the Government of Lower Austria Christina Dumbraveanu (Medical University of Innsbruck) Filip Koniuszewski (Medical University of Vienna) Nadja Milivojev (Max Petrutz Labs, University of Vienna) The Poster Flash Prizes were generously sponsered by Springer
Travel Grants for the ANA Meeting 2021 Available! ANA awarded 28 Travel Grants for Early Career ANA Members (PhD Students & ECRs <2 yrs after PhD). These Travel Grants of EUR 250,- were generously sponsored by the Government of Lower Austria as well as Land Salzburg. On behalf of our young scientists, we are very grateful to Land Salzburg and the Government of Lower Austria that acted as beacons by fostering basic research across federal borders in Austria! Please send your application for travel grants for the ANA Meeting 2021/Salzburg after registration & abstract submission: secretary@austrian-neuroscience.at Don't miss our program updates of the ANA Meeting 2021!
Register for the ANA Meeting 2021 here! How to apply: please send the following documents to René Seiger: We welcome our new ANA Partners 2021 – 2022!
ANA is grateful to its ANA Partners for their continuous support thereby helping to shape and improve Austrian neuroscience.
Particle physicist Christof Gattringer from the University of Graz will be heading the FWF in the coming years. Visit the FWF Website for more information Interview mit dem scheidenden FWF Präsidenten Professor Klement Tockner
Hier finden Sie das gesamte, von Sigismund Huck geführte Interview  SAVE THE DATE:
28 – 30 September 2021
This is usually the time, before the holiday break, when we look back at a fruitful year, celebrate the achievements of our members, recall successful ANA initiatives, and thank our ANA partners. In 2020, everything was different, our personal and professional lives have been and are still affected by COVID-19. At the same time, the coronavirus pandemic has made people increasingly aware of the importance of science for public health and society at large. This is much in line with ANA´s mission of fostering the advancement and public representation of the neurosciences in Austria aiming at building public trust in science, reaching out, and communicating scientific knowledge. As we approach the end of this worrisome year, let us take the opportunity to reflect on positive things. We are happy to report that ANA has a continuously growing number of members and we are taking pride in supporting more and more initiatives, including travel grants, awards, and financial contributions to scientific meetings, symposia, and training courses. For a full list of opportunities, please visit our website. Most noteworthy highlights of 2020 ❄ the Best Thesis Award 2019 that was given to - Stefanie Geisler (Medical University Innsbruck) - Anna Tröscher (Medical University of Vienna) ❄ ANA became a partner of the online platform “Das Gehirn“ (see also the article by Thomas Bugnyar and a commentary by Ludwig Huber). ❄ Young ANA´s Social Media Award that went to - Florian Grössl (IMP, Vienna) - Szabolcs Biró, Anikó Fejes, and Sabria Lagoun (The Brainstorms Scientifics) ❄ and further Social Media Activities launched by Young ANA Chair Bruno Benedetti; to find out more, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn ❄ as a consequence of the pandemic, meetings had to be moved to the virtual space, including the FENS Forum 2020 that went fully online for the first time. Due to the excellent set-up, the virtual forum provided the opportunity to access online talks for 3 months (until mid October) and to watch parallel sessions that may have been missed during an in-person event. Of course, ANA provided grants for members to participate in the virtual FENS Forum Unfortunately, several ANA supported events had to be cancelled. They will, however, take place at a later time point. For 2021, we have great plans again! First and foremost, the ANA Meeting 2021 is scheduled to take place in Salzburg from 28 to 30 September 2021. The meeting is planned as an in-person event following a strict hygiene concept and safety measures. In addition, please look out for the following ANA awards in 2021 ❄ ANA Best Thesis Award 2020: deadline 31 January 2021 We want to especially thank our board members for their continued engagement in these most challenging times. Vice-Secretary Ramon Tasan (Medical University of Innsbruck Extended Board: Bruno Benedetti (Paracelsus Medical Private University, Salzburg) Last but certainly not least, we are very grateful to our ANA partners and sponsors for their unwavering support: Luigs & Neumann We wish you and your loved ones a joyful holiday season and a healthy and prosperous 2021! Francesco Ferraguti, Isabella Sarto-Jackson, René Seiger PS: We would also like to share information from the FENS President Jean-Antoine Girault: Finally, preparations have already begun for the FENS Forum 2022, on 9-13 July in Paris, France. We hope you have already noted down these dates in your calendars and that you will join us: we will be launching the call for symposia and technical workshops in March 2021 and look forward to your proposals.
Young ANA proudly announces the new winners of the
Young ANA Social Media Award:
SZABOLCS BIRÓ, ANIKÓ FEJES and SABRIA LAGOUN, cofounders of THE BRAINSTORMS SCIENTIFICS!
The Golden Trio has literally taken Austria by STORM with their initiative that tells about Neuroscience in fresh and entertaining ways. Stay tuned and check out their events following THE BRAINSTORMS SCIENTIFICS online!
Roman Romanov winner of the 2019 Otto Loewi Award
Poster Prizes Oral Presentation Prizes
Hans Winkler graduated in Medicine in Innsbruck, did his D. Phil. with Herman Blaschko at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, and became Professor of Biochemical Pharmacology at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck in 1975. He succeeded Heribert Konzett in 1980 as head of the Department of Pharmacology. Hans Winkler collaborated for many years with David Smith (Oxford) and contributed as member of the editorial board from the beginning to “Neuroscience”, the IBRO journal founded by David Smith. Hans Winkler was a member of EMBO and of the DANA/EDAB alliance for the Brain. His oeuvre includes >250 publications with more than 10.000 citations.
260 Participants attended the ANA/APHAR Meeting 2019! The meeting took place at the Center for Chemistry and Biomedicine (CCB) in Innsbruck and was a joint venture with the Austrian Pharmacological Society (APHAR). In addition, it was preceded by the final event of the FWF-funded Spezialforschungsbereich SFB-F44, which added a number of high-profile international speakers.
Become a member of ANA and remain updated about our activities. If you are not an ANA member yet, apply for membership by following these instructions. OUR WEBSITE - UPDATE YOUR PROFILE! Our recently introduced Website offers new opportunities for News and Blogs. It has already proven to be of great help in managing the association. The Website has 3 levels of access: (1) Open for the general public (2) Open for all ANA Members (3) Open for ANA Board Members. If you intend to get access as member, please follow instructions on the page Member Website Options. Once you are logged-in you should complete your personal profile. Existing members may ignore the fields "Sponsor Name" and "Sponsor Email". Your profile will already show whether you are up-to-date with your annual dues. For your convenience you can now print your own invoice and pay membership and registration fees by Credit Card, in addition to online banking. You may see (and comment) ANA News and how to contribute to ANA blogs. If you visit the Directory and use "Advanced Search" you should now be able to find cities, institutions, and "keywords for research interests". In order to make this a useful function we are urging all members to update their personal profile. Please note that the directory is only visible to ANA Members. | news
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Sigi Huck, founding father of ANA, discusses the mission, aims, and goals of ANA and highlights the benefits an ANA membership has for neuroscientists.
At the occasion of the ANA/APHAR 2019 Meeting in Innsbruck, ANA President Sigismund Huck and the incoming ANA President Francesco Ferraguti honored Hans Winkler for his groundbreaking discoveries on peptidergic neurotransmission. The focus of his research were large dense-core vesicles, their content in neurosecretory proteins such as the chromogranins, and the biochemical characterization of the ATP-transporter on these vesicles.
