Flinders was a major sponsor of a satellite meeting of the joint meeting of the International Society for Neurochemistry and the Australian Neuroscience Society, focused largely on neuronal signalling, held recently in Cairns.

Flinders sponsored the event and the Plenary lecture given by Nobel Laureate, Professor Erwin Neher (pictured).

Professor Neher won the Nobel Prize in in Physiology or Medicine in 1991 for discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells. His lecture, which provided an overview of the molecular mechanisms defining how cells signal to each other, was a highlight of the event.

Flinders researcher and conference organiser Professor Damien Keating said the conference was an intimate meeting of most of the international leaders in the field of cell and neuronal signalling, an impressive group with a collective number of citations of more than 300,000.

“To attract such an esteemed line-up of speakers from across the globe for this meeting was a significant achievement for us, given the distances of travel involved for most of our speakers”, said Professor Keating.

“The feedback from the attendees was that the list of speakers and the quality of science presented was unparalleled for such a meeting. The Flinders sponsorship of Professor Neher’s seminar and of this event was a big part of our success and is another example of the leadership and innovation that is shown here at Flinders.”