On Oct 30, 2017, School of Life Science and Technology (SLST) at ShanghaiTech hosted a one-day workshop on the topic of “Glia-Neuron Interaction in Development, Behavior, and Disease”. Drs. Margaret Ho, Xiajing Tong and Yang Yang, three professors from SLST, co-chaired the workshop.
A group of eight scientists worldwide presented their most recent work and exciting findings. Dr. Andrea Brand introduced how calcium oscillations in glial cells affect neural stem cell differentiation in Drosophila. She also discussed her innovative approach DamID for cell-type specific profiling on gene expression and chromatin binding. Next, Drs. Cheng-Ting Chien and Anu Ratnaparkhi described their findings on glial-mediated function on tracheal and embryonic development, whereas Drs. Angela Giangrande and Henry Sun discussed their work on epigenetic pathways in glial cells and blood brain barriers in Drosophila visual system. In the afternoon, Dr. Jiawei Zhou spoken on the interplay between NG2+ glia and microglia. Dr. Yijun Liu reported her findings on a potential novel dual protease/phosphatase on microglial migration. Finally, Dr. Rob Jackson concluded the meeting with his exciting story on a novel secreted Ig protein regulating sleep and circadian behavior.
The invited speakers specialized in different fields of neuroscience including neural stem cell differentiation, circadian behavior, glia in innate immunity, epigenetic control of gliogenesis and neurogenesis. The workshop provided a wonderful opportunity for the professors and students from SLST to discuss cutting-edge progress in the field of neuroscience and glial biology and to interact with these speakers for possible future collaboration and scientific exchange.
