The activities of the 2019 Summer Neurophotonics Institute of the CERVO research center will begin shortly.

What is the Summer Neurophotonics Institute? It is an opportunity to attend, on Tuesdays at noon, tutorials about research that is done at the CERVO center. These tutorials will help you understand the basics of brain research and facilitate discussions with other students in the summer session.

The Summer Neurophotonics Institute is for whom? For all summer students of the CERVO research center

You are invited to participate in this bootcamp, which will take place 26 - 28 February 2019 at Forêt Montmorency. Registration is open until February 15.

Under the initiative of the CREATE-SMAART and Sentinel North programs at Université Laval, this bootcamp offers students a unique opportunity to interact with top level scientists as part of a transdisciplinary and highly technological training program aimed to develop and deploy an optical device in northern conditions.

New research published in Cell Reports demonstrates that a molecule best known for its role as an axon guidance cue in the developing brain called netrin-1 plays a critical role in the strengthening of connections, called synapses, between neurons in the adult brain.  This strengthening of connections, called long-term potentiation was demonstrated to require netrin-1in a brain area called the hippocampus, associated with memory formation.

Read a recent article in Le Soleil newspaper about Zilia, a company commercializing a new tool for early diagnosis of several eye conditions, including glaucoma and macular degeneration.

Zilia, formerly known as Retnia, employs four students/alumni from the CERVO research centre,  Cleophace Akitegetse (PhD), Jasmine Poirier (MSc), Nicolas Lapointe and Damon De Paoli (PhD).

The Canadian governement also announced its support of this company, with a $200 000 loan.

Congratulations to the following Summer School participants on winning our awards!

Best presentations:

Congratulations to Yves De Koninck, who will be awarded the 2019 Emily M Gray Award from the Biophysical Society (BPS) on March 4, 2019. De Koninck will be honored at the Society's 63rd Annual Meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center on March 4, 2019, during the annual BPS Awards and Lecture Presentation.

De Koninck will be recognized for his work in the development of internationally renowned, transdisciplinary training initiatives in neurophysics and neurophotonics that have provided hands-on training for numerous students and postdoctoral fellows.

Two members of the Neurophotonics Centre, Yves De Koninck and Daniel Côté are part of a team of researchers, which also includes researchers from the Centre d'optique, photonique et lasers (COPL), who was awarded the 2018 Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering.