A Springboard to Scientific Breakthrough

A snapshot of the participating institutions that will attend the SUNY-CUNY Neuroscience Research Forum on Feb. 23.

ALBANY, N.Y. (February 15, 2017) — More than 100 researchers and scholars representing 13 different SUNY and CUNY institutions will convene at UAlbany on Thursday, Feb. 23, with a goal of greater research collaboration to unlock the potential of the neurosciences.

There, at the inaugural SUNY-CUNY Neuroscience Research Forum, discussions on the participants' latest research will serve as a springboard to advance scholarly exchange, increase networking and enable future multi-investigator research opportunities.

Keynote speaker at the event, which will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. in the D’Ambra Auditorium of the Life Sciences Research Building, will be Yasmin Hurd, a nationally acclaimed investigator on addiction and related psychiatric disorders from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.The forum

“As leading public research universities, our faculty scholars are deeply committed to neuroscience research and discovery, particularly the critical role it plays in ameliorating public health and health-related challenges facing society today,” said a joint letter from James A. Dias, UAlbany Research VP; Mark E. Hauber, SUNY interim vice provost for research; Mark Stewart, interim provost and a dean of graduate studies at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and Stewart Bloomfield, associate dean for graduate studies and research at SUNY Optometry.

Neurobiologist Yasmin Hurd

The forum is designed to bring together faculty and researchers from different neuroscience disciplines who otherwise would not have an opportunity to collaborate with one another. The goal is to create a platform that will foster collaborations and research synergies, ranging from two-person investigations to multi-investigator projects to large scale, multi-institutional extramural funding pursuits.

“Neuroscience in the 21st century is clearly in the midst of a seismic transformation with unprecedented focus on multi-investigator, interdisciplinary collaborative research strategies aimed at overcoming some of today’s most complex and perplexing scientific challenges, said Dias. “This is why I am so pleased that the University is hosting a forum that will forge new collaborations and spark novel extramural funding pursuits in search of the next scientific breakthrough.”

Keynote speaker Hurd's multidisciplinary research, which investigates the neurobiology underlying addiction disorders and related psychiatric illnesses, was featured in TIME magazine’s May 25 cover story.

A major focus of her efforts is directed to risk factors of addiction disorders, including genetics as well as developmental exposure to drugs of abuse. The recent push to legalize recreational and medical marijuana has put the spotlight on her pioneering work on the transgenerational effects of cannabis on the developing brain.

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