2024 Second Annual Symposium for the Center for Neurotherapeutics

“Challenges and Opportunities in Neurotherapeutics”

Dr. Al La Spada, Director, and Dr. Rob Spitale, Associate Director, of the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics are delighted to announce our upcoming Second Annual Symposium.

Date:
Friday, October 4, 2024

Time:
8a-9a | Breakfast
9a – 6p | Symposium

The purpose of the Symposium will be to familiarize attendees with the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics and introduce attendees to the exciting translational neuroscience research happening right on our campus and in labs across the country. We hope that attendees will:

1. Learn about the vision that drives us at the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics and our ongoing effort to advance drug development on campus.
   
2. Become acquainted with cutting-edge approaches being applied to develop innovative models and novel therapeutic solutions for neurological diseases. Lecture topics will include drug discovery and high-throughput screening methods to identify rational drug targets. Experts from diverse disciplines will explain how they are tackling the challenge of delivering small molecules and biological agents across the blood-brain barrier.
   
3. Appreciate the many opportunities for cross-disciplinary interaction and collaboration in this field. Our number one core value at the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics is to promote collaboration across campus, especially between faculty in the physical sciences and the biological sciences. We believe that only by combining such multi-disciplinary expertise and diverse perspectives will it be possible to unlock new avenues of discovery and accelerate progress toward developing meaningful solutions for therapy development.

Our exceptional line-up of guest speakers and UCI faculty speakers include:

1. Anabella Villalobos (Biogen); Neurological/Rare Disease Therapies
2. Donna Huryn (University of Pennsylvania); Academic Drug Discovery Challenges
3. Ethan Lippmann (Vanderbilt); siRNA Brain Delivery via Albumin
4. Su Guo (UC San Francisco); GPCR Targeting in Parkinson’s
5. Errol Arkilic (UC Irvine); Beall Applied Innovation
6. Leslie Thompson (UC Irvine); Huntington’s Disease Treatment Advances
7. Jennifer Prescher (UC Irvine); Nature-Inspired Imaging Tools
8. Christopher Hughes (UC Irvine); Blood-Brain Barrier Neurovascular Model
9. Melanie Cocco (UC Irvine); Voxelotor for Red Blood Cell Modulation

Whether you are a student, postdoctoral trainee, faculty member, or staff member, we encourage you to join us, so please mark your calendars!