The 13th International Congress of the Polish Neuroscience Society (PTBUN) was held on August 28th-31st, 2017, at the Ochota Campus in Warsaw. The Conference was held under the patronage of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS and the Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University, and was organized as part of the 100th anniversary of the Nencki Institute.
More than 350 participants attended the congress, including more than 120 PhD students. Seven plenary lectures were delivered by outstanding scientists invited from Poland and abroad. There were also "Special Lectures", one of them presented by the laureate of the newly-established Adolf Beck Prize in the field of electrophysiology.
The Congress offered 15 symposium sessions organized by Polish researchers, with the participation of sixty invited lecturers from Austria, Belgium, France, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, Italy Poland and USA. One additional symposium, "Bridging the gaps", was organized by colleagues from the Faculty of Physics. Lectures and symposia were accompanied by two poster sessions, during which 200 posters were presented. In addition, for the first time in the history of PTBUN Congresses,"Meet the Speaker Event" was organized. Professors: Mriganka Sur (MIT, Cambridge) and Robert Edwards (UCSF, San Francisco) shared their experiences and talked about career paths. The sale of the books by Professor Jerzy Vetulani was also organized.
An important event was awarding Prof. Małgorzata Kossut (Nencki Institute) and Prof. Marek Kowalczyk (Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw) with honorary membership of the PTBUN as initiators and co-founders of the PTBUN, with great merits for the Society and significant scientific achievements.
The Congress was preceded by workshops and courses organized as Precongress Events at the Nencki Institute and at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw: Electrophysiological Workshops, Optogenics Workshops and the Symposium Early and late neurotoxic signals, under the auspices of the European Society for Neurochemistry. The full program of the Congress is available at: http://icpns2017.conrego.pl/
The organization of the Congress has been successfully undertaken by dr hab. Monika Liguz-Lęcznar (Nencki Institute). This significant scientific event was the result of the the Program Committee's work and the successful cooperation of the Organizers with: the Medical Research Centre PAS in Warsaw, the Institute of Pharmacology in Krakow, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw and the Warsaw Medical University. The Congress was supported also by other co-organizers: the Committees of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Neurobiology, Neurological Sciences and Cellular Molecular Biology. The members of the Organizing Committee were: Paweł Boguszewski, Robert Kuba Filipkowski, Katarzyna Kalita, Monika Liguz-Lęcznar, Katarzyna Łukasiuk, Dorota Nowicka, Krystyna Ossowska, Małgorzata Skup, Kinga Szydłowska, Marta Wiśniewska, Renata Zakrzewska, Jarosław Żygierewicz. The Organizing Commitee was supported by the students from Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS: Ewa Banach, Katarzyna Dobrzański, Katarzyna Łepeta, Zuzanna Prawos, Aleksandra Różycka, Weronika Szadzińska, Kamil Tomaszewski, Zbigniew Zieliński.