More than 40 staff from the Department of Psychology, the Centre for Cognition and its Disorders, and The Australian School of Advanced Medicine represented Macquarie at the first Inter-university Neuroscience and Mental Health Conference.

“The conference was the first of its kind,” said Department of Psychology Associate Professor Jennifer Cornish, “providing an opportunity to foster collaborations between Macquarie, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney.”

Associate Professor Cornish says that with any such meeting, new collaborations are formed along with reigniting old collaborative efforts.

“Through discussion of research with colleagues at the University of Sydney, I met a medicinal chemist interested in developing drug therapies for mental health disorders,” she said. “Since this meeting we have developed future plans for research at Macquarie to test novel compounds to reduce addiction to methamphetamine (ICE).”

The conference also launched a new Early Career Researcher network called ‘Synapse’, which brings together Higher Degree Research Candidates and Researchers, one-to-five years post-PhD, to discuss their research and to encourage research networking and collaboration.

“It’s often because we all live in the same city we don’t feel the need to meet,” she said. “But it’s the face-to-face discussions that really inspire research.”

Associate Professor Cornish says it is important NSW highlights and promotes neuroscience and mental health research, particularly across Universities which have significant strength in these areas.

“The conference was a great success and will become an annual event, with Macquarie likely to host in 2016,” she said. “All keynote speakers were international experts in their field and presented valuable insight into neuroscience and mental health research.”

Student accolade
Congratulations to Australian School of Advanced Medicine HDR candidate Josien De Bie, who received the University of Sydney Faculty of Pharmacy prize for the best HDR candidate oral presentation during the conference.