CIMPP 2nd Annual Symposium

The Centre for Integrative Mammalian Physiology & Pharmacology at Imperial (CIMPP) celebrated its first year anniversary with the second National Symposium held on 30 September 2008.  The Symposium, hosted by the Head of the Centre, Professor Julia Buckingham, was held at the College’s South Kensington campus, and was organised by Drs Felicy Gavins and Kirsty Smith.

The National Symposium was opened by the College’s newly appointed Rector, Professor Sir Roy Anderson.  The Symposium covered two main themes, Animal Behaviour and the application of novel technologies to study physiological problems to evaluate drug action. Speakers included international experts in in vivo science from the USA and
Australia as well as from Imperial College London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and King’s College London. 

The morning Plenary Lecture ”Rodent models of anxiety and depression” was delivered by Dr Andrew Holmes from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Rockville, Maryland, USA, who highlighted the importance of choosing the correct animal models when studying these diseases.  The afternoon Plenary Lecture was presented by Professor Stafford Lightman from the University of Bristol, his theme being The functional significance of hormone pulsatility: does this also apply to glucocorticoids?  He presented some very interesting data showing how automated blood sampling can be used to determine glucocorticoid pulsatility in vivo.

The event was attended by approximately 200 leading in vivo scientists and researchers, as well as Executives from the Research Councils, British Pharmacological Society, the Physiological Society and the Pharmaceutical Industry. It was an opportunity for scientists in the field to come together and network, with some potential future collaborations also being established.

The Symposium also provided the opportunity for the presentation of about 50 research projects as posters.  The best three posters were awarded prizes which were presented by Professor Stephen Bloom, a key Board Member of the CIMPP  . 

Students who have recently completed the MRes in Integrative Mammalian Biology were in attendance and many presented posters of data from their lab projects.  In addition, the four CIMPP PhD students all presented posters of their PhD projects and Christopher Gardner, from the Department of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, was selected to give a short presentation at the Symposium.

This year the CIMPP National Symposium was again a great success and the work of the Centre was strongly praised by both internal and external colleagues. 

Charles River L aboratories kindly sponsored the morning tea and coffee at this event.

The full programme of the symposium can be seen by clicking this link : CIMPP 2nd National Symposium Programme

The abstracts of the projects have restricted viewing and can be seen by clicking this link : CIMPP 2nd National Symposium Abstracts