Each year, the ZNZ organizes a retreat for its PhD students, with the main objective to stimulate the exchange among doctoral students from various institutes and clinics. At this year’s Retreat, that will take place 7-9 May 2015 in the Clinic Valens, the program features a discussion panel on animal models in neuroscience research.
The retreat will open on Thursday evening with a plenary talk by Prof. Kevan Martin of the Institute of Neuroinformatics, entitled “The ZNZ’s got talent…”, which will be a more philosophical talk. The next morning, Prof. Jürg Kesselring will introduce selected patients of the neurorehabilitation clinic and discuss their cases. Subsequently a short guided tour of the clinic is planned.
In the afternoon there will be a discussion panel on animal models for clinical neuroscience research – possibilities and limitations. Volker Dietz of the Balgrist University Hospital (spinal cord injury), Jean-Marc Fritschy of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology (epilepsy) and Susanne Wegener of the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich (stroke) will give short introductions about their experiences with animal models, take questions and discuss their ideas with the students.
On Friday and Saturday, all students will present their research either on posters or in short talks. Each year around 50 students join the retreat and it is highly valued by the doctoral students. See also this ZNZ post.