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1^st Training Workshop of the EC-NAMASEN Marie Curie Network

NEUROTECHNOLOGIES FOR NEUROELECTRONIC HYBRIDS AND NEUROPROSTHETICS

(as a satellite event to the 8th International MEA2012 meeting)

July 9-10, 2012, Reutlingen, Germany

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The NAMASEN Marie Curie ITN Consortium organizes its first Training Workshop, as a satellite events to the 8th International Meeting on Substrate-Integrated Microelectrode Arrays (Reutlingen, Germany).

Please visit our website for further information http://www.namasen.net

 Students attending the workshop may get a certificate and earn educational credits.

GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE TRAINING WORKSHOP

The workshop iso open to external participants and it is free of charge, although in-time registration is compulsory (see below). This training workshop is organized around the 12 NAMASEN recruited fellows. They come from technological as well as biological disciplines, and include also computational neuroscientists, as well as physicists. This broad spectrum of backgrounds and interests is not only represented by many of the attendees of the MEA2012 meeting, but more in general by many of today's researchers in the domain of neuroengineering and neurotechnology. 

Thus our workshop specifically aim to provide the participants with an in depth training on a selection of basic topics in neuroscience and neurotechnologies. Emphasis is also placed at covering some soft-skills and non-academic training aspects, including innovation and industrial exploitation, project management, and ethics, relevant for neurotechnologies and placed in the right context by leaders in the field.

The workshop is organized as a satellite event to the MEA meeting. Interested attendees to the MEA meeting may receive an additional training, enabling them to fully benefit from the congress and access its content.

Networking is also among the goals of this workshop. It is aimed at enabling external participants, fellows, and principal investigators to get together, know about each other's interests, as well as exploring research collaborations, planned and unplanned, within and outside NAMASEN.

COURSE FORMAT

The workshop is organized over two days. The workshop gives a basic introduction to neurobiology, neuroelectronics, and cellular electrophysiology, as well as to basic microtechnology, microfabrication, substrate arrays and CMOS technology for in vitro and in vivo applications. The workshop also focuses on aspects of soft-skills, complementing and extending the boundaries of the academic research training, with the ultimate goal of contributing to the next generation professionals, over many perspectives beyond the academic one.

Key topics of the workshop will include:

•   Relationship between structure and function, through neuronal connectivity

•   Fundamentals of neurobiology, neuroelectronic, and electrophysiology

•   Fundamentals of microfabrication and technologies for neuroprobes, in vivo and in vitro

•   Neuro-electronic interface

•   Project management and Team Work

•   Innovation and Industrial Exploitation

•   Ethics in science

CONTRIBUTING LECTURERS (draft programme)

Almut Schüz (Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany)

Micha Spira (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

Luca Berdondini (IIT, The Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, Italy)

Patrick Ruther (IMTEK, Institut für Mikrosystemtechnik, University of Freiburg, Germany)

Reinhard Rubow (Retina Implant AG, Germany)

Kris Verstreken (Archimedrics, Belgium)

Martin Stelzle (BioMEMS / Sensors Group, NMI, Reutlingen, Germany)

GENERAL INFORMATION ON NAMASEN

NAMASEN is an Initial Training Network, sponsored by the European Commission under the FP7 Marie-Curie actions. It deals with Neuroelectronics and Nanotechnology, as a ground towards a Multidisciplinary Approach for the Science and Engineering of Neuronal Networks. NAMASEN targets both technological and scientific priorities, such as the development of novel multi-electrode arrays and advanced interfaces that functionally interact with neurons and networks. NAMASEN investigates neuro-electronic hybrids as devices able to undergo a functional and anatomical reconfiguration, on the basis of the activity-dependent plasticity and rewiring properties of neurons, under some control by the experimenter. 

IMPORTANT DEADLINES

Registration, free of charge by 20 June 2012, via email (michele.giugliano AT ua.ac.be), including an updated CV.

WORKSHOP VENUE (directions)

The meeting will be held at NMI, Gerhard-Kindler-Straße 6, 72770 Reutlingen. 

The venue  can be easily reached by taxi from Reutlingen railway station (10 mins), or by public transportation (bus n. 7611 / 10 - direction/final destination “Tübingen Hbf“; bus n. 7605  -direction/final destination “Kusterdingen”; see also here, and here).

ACCOMMODATION

Block bookings with several hotels close to the MEA2012 conference venue have been arranged by the organizers of the conference. For MEA 2012 participants special rates are available until June 12, 2012 - see here.

Please note that availability is limited, given space constraints. Register as soon as possible to guarantee your attendance.

NAMASEN and the organizers of this training workshop kindly acknowledge financial support from the Marie Curie EC-FP-PEOPLE-2010 programme, contract n, 264872.