AKN 2005 Meeting Summary:

The Association of Korean Neuroscientists Annual Symposium 2005 was held from 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM on Tuesday, November 15 th , 2005 at the Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C., USA . Over 250 scientists attended the meeting to share ideas and foster collaborations. The AKN President, Dr. Hemin Chin, welcomed the members and introduced this year's sponsors, AKN officers, and distinguished members. The poster session was held by 50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the US , Korea , and Australia . After the poster session, all members were invited to a dinner at Woo Lae Oak Korean Restaurant. Following dinner, 5 AKN President's Outstanding Research Awards and 4 AKN Excellence in Research Awards were presented.

Financial support acknowledgment:

We are grateful to the following AKN2005 sponsors:: SeouLinBioscience Korea , Brain Research Center ( The MOST 21C Frontier Program in Neuroscience; Director: Dr. Kyungjin Kim ), Macrogen, and Gacheon Medical School (through Professor Zhanghee Cho).

AKN2005 AWARDS:

AKN President's Outstanding Research Award

Kendall Lee, M.D., Ph.D.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
"High Frequency Stimulation abolishes network oscillations by astrocytic Glutamate Release."

Han Seok Ko, Ph.D.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
"Accumulation of the Authentic Parkin Substrate, Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase Cofactor, p38/JTV-1, Leads to Catecholaminergic Cell Death"

Jungsu Kim
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
"Aß40 inhibits amyloid deposition and modulates premature death phenotype in vivo"

Back-Soo Han, Ph.D.
Yonsei University
"A novel mechanism to inhibit caspase activity at a point distal to cytosolic release of cytochrome c: Role of interplay among proteolytic enzymes."

Hangun Kim
Chonnam National University
"Presenilin-1 D257A and D385A mutants fail to cleave Notch in their endoproteolysed forms, but only Presenilin-1 D385A mutant can restore its ?-secretase activity with the compensatory" overexpression of normal C-terminal fragment

AKN President's Excellence In Research Award

Gunsoo Kim, Ph.D.
University of California in San Francisco
"Impaired refinement of GABA/glycinergic connections in the auditory brainstem of alpha9 nAChR subunit knockout mice"

Jong-Hee Lee
Pohang Institute of Technology
"Regulation of p53 and Neuron Apoptosis in response to DNA damage is mediated by activation of Cyclin-dependent kinase 5"

Sooyoung Chung
Seoul National University
"Differential Adaptive Responses to Chronic Stress of Maternally Stressed Male Mice Offspring"

SangRyong Kim
Ajou University Medical School
"Prothrombin Kringle-2 induced microglial activation produces cell death of nigral dopaminergic neurons in vivo"

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