CAN Connection – Summer 2021

Message from CAN President Shernaz Bamji

Dear CAN members,

I am very proud to represent the Canadian neuroscience community as President. I want to thank outgoing President Charles Bourque for his exceptional dedication to CAN during the difficult pandemic year we just passed. I am also grateful to our members who stayed involved and committed to supporting our community.

One of the great honours associated with being CAN President is the opportunity to celebrate neuroscience research excellence in Canada. I am very happy to congratulate all the 2020 Brain Star Award winners. These awards, presented to trainees working in Canadian labs for publications within the mandate of CIHR-INMHA, are an excellent way to showcase the diverse and innovative discoveries made by the next generation of Canadian neuroscientists. I invite you to read about their discoveries, and keep an eye out for these scientists in the future!

I also wish to congratulate the winners of the 2021 CAN Young Investigator Awards: Dr. Tabrez Siddiqui at the University of Manitoba, and Dr. Aaron Phillips at the University of Calgary. Both researchers have already made very significant discoveries in the first years of their career, and are recognized leaders in their field of study. I invite you to learn more about them below, and to follow these rising stars.

While we celebrate neuroscience research as a strength in Canada, we have to make sure our researchers, including the next generation, have the financial resources to pursue their research objectives. Advocating for increased research investments is essential to ensure that increased investments in CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC becomes part of our government’s priorities for the years to come.

CAN will continue to advocate for research in the coming month, and to provide our members with opportunities to get involved and participate in this important activity. I invite you to read the advocacy section of this newsletter to learn about our latest advocacy activities. We will also be working with our advocacy team to engage with all political parties in advance of the upcoming federal elections.

I look forward to seeing many of you, virtually, at the next CAN meeting, August 23-25. The program chair, Roger Thompson, and the co-chair, Alyson Fournier, have worked hard to adapt our meeting program to an engaging virtual format. Please consider registering your whole team for this meeting, which is an important meeting point for our community, and a place where we can all share our research and re-connect. We feature a few program highlights below.

I wish you a great summer, which we can finally enjoy in a more carefree fashion, now that many of us are finally fully vaccinated. What a great win for science. Let’s build on this win to show how important science is in the lives of all Canadians.

Shernaz Bamji

President of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience

CAN CIHR-INMHA Brain Star Awards

The Canadian Association for Neuroscience (CAN) and the Canadian Institutes of Health’s Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (CIHR-INMHA) are proud to announce the winners of the 2020 Brain Star Awards.

The CIHR-INMHA Brain Star awards, administered for 2020 by the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, are awarded to students and trainees who have published high impact discoveries in all fields and disciplines covered by CIHR’s Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction in the 2020 calendar year.

We want to thank the CAN nominations committee, led by Katalin Toth, who reviewed over 130 applications received this year for the CAN-CIHR-INMHA Brain Star Awards.

You can view the profiles of all the winners here:

https://can-acn.org/congratulations-to-the-winners-of-the-2020-can-cihr-inmha-brain-star-awards/

We will be featuring each winner on our social media accounts during the weeks leading to the CAN annual meeting at the end of August. Follow #BrainStarAward to view all the profiles, and help us amplify these important discoveries.

Science Advocacy

CAN President Shernaz Bamji speaks at House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on June 14, 2021

 

CAN and CSMB co-host “Science Policy and Government 101 with Member of Parliament Kirsty Duncan”

On Friday, June 25, 2021 at 1:00pm EST the Canadian Association for Neuroscience and the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences jointly hosted a session with the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Ph.D., Member of Parliament for the riding of Etobicoke North and former Minister of Science for a Q&A session on Science Policy and Government. The Chair of the CAN advocacy committee, Karun Singh, and the President of CSMB, Imogen Coe, co-hosted this event.

This event, exclusive to members of CSMB and CAN, gave participants the opportunity to ask Dr. Duncan questions about how best to engage with elected and non-elected officials, and how to amplify our message about the importance of supporting fundamental science.

House of commons Standing committee on Finance Pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2022 budget – Invitation to submit a brief

The Standing Committee on Finance has launched its Pre-Budget Consultations in advance of the 2022 budget. Written submissions of no more than 2,000 words, based on the following template, can be submitted to the Committee until Friday, August 6, 2021, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. More information is available in the news release.

CAN is currently working on our submission, and we will make it available to our members at the end of July. Please note that all Canadians can submit a brief, so please consider submitting a brief promoting increased investment in basic research in Canada, in CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC. You can view CAN’s submission from last year here: https://can-acn.org/documents/2020/CAN-FINA-submission-2020.pdf. We will be updating and adapting these recommendations for the 2022 budget consultations.

Read our latest advocacy report

As part of our Memorandum of Understanding with SfN, CAN submits advocacy reports periodically to our partners at SfN. To have an overview of CAN advocacy activities over the last year, please consult our latest Advocacy report – July 2021

https://can-acn.org/docs/CAN_advocacy_report_July2021.pdf

CAN2021 Meeting news

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the 14th Annual CAN Meeting, a virtual event that will take place August 23 – 25,  2021. Program Chair Roger Thompson and Co-Chair Alyson Fournier have worked very hard to adapt the program to a virtual format, with the aim of making this an engaging and stimulating event.

Registration

Registration for the CAN meeting is open!

https://can-acn.org/meeting-2021/registration-2021/

Meeting highlights

 

 

View the full meeting program here:

https://can-acn.org/meeting-2021/program-2021/

 

 

IBRO Awards to encourage participation of Canadian trainees from underrepresented groups in the CAN meeting

The important support that IBRO has been providing to members of under-represented groups to participate in the CAN meeting over the last years has been an important way to diversify and improve attendance in our meeting.

Again in 2021, the IBRO US-Canada regional committee (IBRO-USCRC) is offering IBRO awards to encourage participation of Canadian trainees from underrepresented groups in the CAN meeting.

These awards are for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to attend the 2021 virtual CAN meeting, and cover the price of meeting registration.

View full eligibility criteria here: https://can-acn.org/meeting-2021/2021-ibro-awards/

Sponsors and Exhibitors

Sponsors and exhibitors are important partners that allow us to keep registration fees low for all our attendees, including trainees. We invite you to share information about the CAN meeting to vendors and others potential partners.

More details: https://can-acn.org/meeting-2021/2021-sponsors-exhibitors/

2021 Satellite symposia

Satellite 1: Recent advances in neurophysiology