First course on insect neuroscience and Drosophila neurogenetics in Uganda
Posted by Lucia Prieto Godino, on 7 October 2011
This is the first post of others to come on the first course on insect neuroscience and Drosophila neurogenetics in Uganda, that is being partially funded by The Company of Biologist. The motivation for organizing the course is that currently in East Africa, and most parts of Africa, research in experimental neuroscience is carried out mostly with rats, which are expensive. However, almost no one is using Drosophila, an inexpensive model organism that in Europe and the U.S is leading in neuroscience and basic medical research. The course will include theoretical and practical (laboratory) sessions. It is intended for graduate students and Junior Faculty who are interested or involved in teaching or doing research in neuroscience at universities in Africa. This year course will start next week, and thanks to the support from The Company of Biologist, we will be welcoming students from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The people involved in the project include a local organizing committee that is taking care of all the organization in Ishaka (where the medical campus of the Kampala International University is based, place where the course will take place), and faculty: Dr. Baden, Dr. Palacios, Dr. Martin-Bermudo, Dr. Vicente, and myself (Dr. Prieto Godino). I will post here some other general posts about the course, but if you are interested and you would like to know more about it, and how it is running everyday you can follow our Facebook or our blog pages.
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Great initiative!
Thank you! I hope that more people think the same way, and that we can repeat it next year!
How’s the course going? I saw a picture of lots of rain on your Facebook page… Hope everything is going according to schedule!
Hi Eva, thank you for your interest in the course. It is going really well! I was about to write a new post here in the Node.We had very heavy rain a couple of days ago, and we had a small flooding in the lab, but it was all sorted in question of minutes, so we are all good and running on schedule!
Good to hear! Looking forward to your next post.