IBRO-APRC ULAANBAATAR ASSOCIATE SCHOOL ON FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN NEUROSCIENCE – 2021
The IBRO-APRC Ulaanbaatar Associate School on Fundamental Techniques in Neuroscience, a 6 – day school, has been designed for 20 students in brain sciences from the countries of the Asian-Pacific region. The local organizers provided a virtual meeting platform, live stream, laboratory facilities, and technical aids required for the hands-on procedures during the entire period of the school. In the first 4 days, the students were introduced to theoretical knowledge and technical skills for a better understanding of the fundamental principles and methods in cellular, systems, and clinical neuroscience. The students were also provided with hands-on sessions in western blotting, tissue processing, staining, and microscopy techniques. In group discussions, students learned neuroethical issues and were encouraged to give both poster and oral presentations about their current studies. They were also asked to prepare for a Journal club by using a computer search for relevant articles to neuroethics. Starting on Day 5, students were facilitated to join the IBRO lectures and plenary lectures at the 8th Annual Meeting of Mongolian Neuroscience Society which was held on August 13-14, 2021. Students and local organizers enjoyed a dinner with cultural performances after the official program.
The students consisted of 20 local awardees from the country. 1 of the attendees were men and 19 of them were women. There were 3 Ph.D. students, 8 Master’s students, 9 medical doctors/researchers.
The school was included 4 invited lectures by international faculties from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and the US, 9 tech talks, and 4 laboratory hands-on modules by local faculties.
The six-day training workshop was conducted on six consecutive days. Each day the session started at 09:00 am and end at 04:30 pm. Each day there were two fifteen-minute coffee breaks; at 10:15 am and at 02:45 pm. There was a daily one-hour lunch break at 12:30 pm.
At the end of the session, students were asked to fill in an evaluation form, with questions related to their appreciation, on the overall quality of the workshop and of each session, skills and concepts acquired, and recommendations for improving the quality of the training.
Briefly, the following core concepts were covered in the training program as lectures/seminars: neuroinflammation, neurogenesis, synaptic plasticity, circuitry mechanisms of energy balance, neuroethics, cell culture, DNA extraction, immunostaining and microscopy, RT-qPCR, western blotting, stereotaxic ICV injections, and stem cell methods. The students also attended the 8th Annual Meeting of Mongolian Neuroscience Society has been organized as a blended conference that offered online attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, it brought together more than 2.6K online participants and reached more than 50K people this year. There were 14 invited lectures by international speakers from 8 countries including China, India, Japan, Korea, Kyrgyz, Malaysia, Russia, and the USA, as well as 20 local presentations. We used the Zoom app for the virtual event and it was transmitted live via Facebook. The school benefited both the students and the local faculty, contributing therefore to building capacity in neuroscience in Mongolia. The school generated the enthusiasm of the faculty and researchers who want to leverage neuroscience in Mongolia. We are truly grateful for the generous support by IBRO that made it possible to hold the event successfully.