Conference: 4th NeuroNex Investigator Meeting: Beyond Neurons

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The National Science Foundation NeuroNex network is a community of research teams that work on the leading edge of inventing and applying to foundational question in neuroscience diverse tools, techniques, software, animal models, behavioral and computational analysis, hardware development, systems biology, and many other areas of biological and theoretical research. NeuroNex investigators meet periodically to provide updates on their progress, collect feedback on experiments and results, and share ideas on timely topics in science and the practice of team science. These meetings are invaluable opportunities for NeuroNex investigators to network with other researchers and to form new collaborations and lines of inquiry that are possible only with interdisciplinary expertise and shared effort and resources. The theme of this NeuroNex Investigator Meeting, “Beyond Neurons,” is designed to stimulate creativity and generate ideas for the future of NeuroNex research. Through a series of progressive, interactive workshops, NeuroNex researchers are encouraged to consider how their advancements can be applied to challenges faced by other NeuroNex groups, to cell types other than neurons, to efforts beyond biology, and how they can impact on society beyond scientific research. The ideas generated through this process will identify emergent themes and inspire future research directions. NeuroNex trainees (undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers) are key participants in these meetings and have the opportunity to present their work via a Poster Session attended by present and potential future national and internatinonal colleagues and mentors, and funding agency officials. The NeuroNex community has created valuable advancements in a variety of research areas. NeuroNex Investigator Meetings provide an opportunity for researchers to update their colleagues on their progress and to inspire them to ask and pursue answers to questions that require new models, techniques, tool invention and development, computation, and other paths of inquiry that are only possible through collaboration with other researchers. The meeting schedule includes time for participants to network with colleagues, a Poster Session that allows each group to present an overview of their NeuroNex project and for trainees to share their research results, two talks from scientists external to the NeuroNex network whose work is especially relevant to the theme of the meeting and several workshop sessions focused on the theme of this NeuroNex Investigator Meeting, “Beyond Neurons.” This theme was chosen to challenge NeuroNex investigators to consider how they can apply their findings, models, tools, and other advancements to research questions in “Beyond Your Bench,” “Beyond Neurons,” “Into the Bioeconomy” and “Beyond Biology.” Through a series of Workshops, researchers consider each of these avenues of broader impact and, with subgroups of colleagues, identify the most interesting potential future directions as well as current challenges to pursuing those avenues. Ideas generated by each subgroup contribute to the meeting’s exercise of collectively identifying emergent themes and priorities for future research. Post-meeting discussions among members of the NeuroNex community will refine the visioning developed during the meeting. A direct, tangible outcome of the meeting is a White Paper summarizing the themes and priorities developed during the meeting. the White Paper will be broadly accessible through the public neuronex.org website.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.