January 17, 2012 Vanderbilt Conte Center Research Program Monthly Meeting Welcome and Program Update: Randy Blakely • Conte Renewal Update o The grant goes to Council on Friday, January 20th o Having served on the review committee before for Conte Center proposals, Pat is optimistic—when it’s on the paylist, it’s on the paylist. o We will know for sure in the next few weeks • 2012 Pilot Grants o Call for submission on February 1 o Proposals due March 1 o Funding to begin April 1 o At least 2 pilot projects will be funded • Assistance to Graduate Program in Neuroscience o Randy and Mark will meet to discuss the financial needs of the graduate program o Like last year, some of the funds for pilot projects may be redirected to support graduate student training • Personnel Changes o New in Bing’s core: Jing Wang o Brett Begley has left the Bioanalytical Core to go to school o David Airey has started school as well, and his project has been absorbed by the Blakely team Conte-­‐ASC Supplement: Mark Wallace/Denise Malone • One Hundred Oaks o We are working with high school students from the School of Math and Science to evaluate and expand on the content at OHO • Neurobehavioral Core o A new 55” interactive touch display has been installed in the Laboratory for Neurobehavior’s conference room o This display will serve as a learning tool regarding facets of the core, including Facilities, Education & Training, Neuroscience Research, Mouse Behavioral Testing and Rat Behavioral testing o Gregg is leading a team of core personnel to create and structure content • Lobby kiosk—Neuroscientist Directory o New display is located in the lobby of MRB III o Will serve to highlight coming events (symposia, Brain Awareness, thesis defenses, seminars and forum) o Will also have a directory of neuroscientists at Vanderbilt • 2012 Symposium o Mark will head a committee of unsuspecting post docs and graduate students to determine the panel for the 2012 Symposium Administrative Review: Mary Michael-­‐Woolman • PI Packets/Project Budgets were handed out to each PI, Pilot Grant Recipient and Core Director • Renewal Planning o No equipment may be purchased the last 6 months of a grant o Do not wait until the end of the fiscal year to spend out funding—try to have majority of spending done by the end of April o The cores are where a bulk of the funds are left, projects are doing a great job of spending Brief Updates Cores: Paul Gresch, Gregg Stanwood and Bing Zhang • Paul has created a list of assays and methods available from the Bioanalytical Core and forwarded to Conte PIs. If anyone else needs a copy, let me know; we’ll also upload this to the website • Follow up on making sure that PIs are spending out/being billed properly for their $2K allotment to the Neurochemistry Core • At this point, all cores “have the extra bandwidth” to handle more work if there are crucial experiments to do prior to the end of June We continued the meeting with brief project summaries from Maureen Hahn and Qi Zhang (pilot projects) and the Conte Projects of Randy Blakely, Ronald Emeson, Pat Levitt and Doug McMahon. The meeting concluded with a presentation from Evan Deneris on his project. Our next meeting is scheduled for February 21st at 5:15 PM, with Doug presenting. New Interactive Digital Signage for Neuroscience Above: graphic representation of signage in the Neurobehavioral Core conference room Left/Below: new MRB III lobby kiosk serving as Neuroscientist Directory for Vanderbilt