AKN 2004 Meeting Summary

The 2004 AKN Satellite Symposium was held in Santa Rosa Room at the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina from 5:30 PM to 7 PM on Tuesday, October 26^th.  This year's event followed last year’s successful informal reception with poster presentations.   A total of 40 students and post-doctoral fellows presented their posters.  The symposium was attended by about 350 members, far exceeding the anticipated attendance number to the extent that the reception room was densely packed with members overflowing into the hallway to carry out their conversations. A distinguished panel of symposium committee members from both US and Korea organized this event.  The co-chairs were Hemin Chin (NIH) and Kyungjin Kim (SNU).  The members were Jackline Lee (U of Colorado), David Song (UCSD), Hoon Ryu, (BU Medical School), Sungok Yoon, (OSU), Byoung Joo Gwag, (Ajou Medical School), Hyun Kim (Korean Univ. Medical School),  Eunjoon Kim (KAIST), Dong Soo Lee (SNU Medical School).  Most of the presenters competed for AKN outstanding research awards and the final winners were selected by the committee members at the meeting. Following the symposium, a Korean dinner was held at Korea House Restaurant at 4620 Convoy Street in San Diego, packed to a full capacity by over 200 members.  The following awardees were presented with a certificate and cash award at the dinner:

Recipients of the AKN President's 2004 Outstanding Research Award:

Graduate students
Kwang Sei Kim Ajou University	Generation of stable immortalized human neural stem cell lines via tetracycline-responsive oncogene activation
Kyoung-Shim Kim Ewha Womans University	Dopaminergic regulation of anxiety and stress coping responses of mice lacking type 5 adenylyl cyclase
Ji-Yeon Shin Emory  University	Expression of huntingtin in glial cells contributes to neuronal excitotoxicity
Postdoctoral Fellows
Su-youne Chang Ph.D., Iowa State	Synaptic release of glutamate hyperpolarizes postsynaptic cells through the activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors in the medial habenula of the epithalamus
Jae-Ran Lee, Ph.D. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	Autoinhibition of the kinesin motor KIF1A by an intramolecular interaction between the FHA domain and a coiled coil
Seong-Woon Yu, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University	Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 and apoptosis-inducing factor in glutamate excitotoxicity

Financial support acknowledgment.
We greatly appreciate the generous support from Gachon Medical School (thru Prof. Zanghee Cho), Scitech Korea, Inc. (Managing Director: Mr. Chan-Seung Park), Brain Research Center (The MOST 21C Frontier Program in Neuroscience; Director: Dr. Kyungjin Kim), Kosen, Yuhan Company R&D Center, CJ Company R&D Center, LG Life Sciences, Dong-il Simaz, Handok Pharmaceutical Co., Society for Biological Research (SBR), and Mr. Joseph Kim.

Poster Session

Dinner

Business Meeting

Awards