About 140 scientists gathered in Rungstedgaard, north of Copenhagen, Denmark, May 5–9 for the biannual Brain Conference organised by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and the Lundbeck Foundation. Co-chaired by Beth Stevens and Christian Haass, who shared the 2018 Brain Prize with Bart De Strooper, John Hardy, and Michel Goedert (March 2018 news [1]), this meeting focused on understanding and targeting Alzheimer’s disease.
The gathering afforded students, postdocs, and principal investigators opportunities to mingle, discuss the state of the field, and find common ground for future work. It also reflected a changing of the guard in AD research. Sprinkled among reviews of established themes, including the amyloid hypothesis, tau, proteopathic spread, and network dysfunction, were snippets of new information on fast-moving areas, mostly TREM2 and the role of glia in neurodegeneration. “The meeting covered diverse topics and brought together senior scientists who had never met each other before,” noted Haass. “It was a fantastic opportunity to forge new collaborations,” he said.
To read the full report from this conference visit the Alz Forum Website – https://www.alzforum.org/news/conference-coverage/brain-conference-spotlights-transcriptomics-therapeutic-strategies [2]