Speakers

Keynote speakers

Amy Newman
National Institutes of Health, USA

Dr. Amy Hauck Newman received her doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry from the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, under the mentorship of Dr. Richard Glennon. She joined the laboratory of Dr. Kenner Rice at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her postdoctoral studies where she conducted total opiate synthesis, as a National Research Service Award fellow.

After starting her first independent lab at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, she joined the National Institute on Drug Abuse-Intramural Research Program (NIDA-IRP), NIH, in 1991, where she was tenured and became the Medicinal Chemistry Section Chief. She currently serves as the Scientific Director, Chief of the Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch and Director of the NIDA-IRP Medications Development Program. She has coauthored more than 340 original articles and reviews on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of centrally active agents, with an emphasis on selective ligands for the dopaminergic system, as potential treatment medications for substance use disorders. In particular, she has pioneered the development of highly selective and bitopic dopamine D3 receptor antagonists and partial agonists for treatment of Opioid Use Disorders (OUD). More recently, she has turned her attention to developing medications for the treatment of psychostimulant use disorders that are comorbid with bipolar disorder and/or schizophrenia. In addition, she has developed research tools that include small molecule fluorescent ligands, radioligands and irreversible ligands directed toward the dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine transporters. She is an inventor on >25 NIH patents and patent applications.

Ana Joao Rodrigues
University of Minho, Portugal

Ana João Rodrigues is a Group Leader at ICVS and Invited Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Minho. Her research bridges fundamental and clinical neuroscience, integrating rodent and human studies to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying motivated behaviors. Her laboratory employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining behavioral assessments, optogenetics, electrophysiology, pharmacology, and live imaging with genetically-encoded sensors in rodent models to understand how reward and aversion are encoded in the brain. Her research excellence has been recognized through prestigious awards, including the inaugural Janssen Neuroscience Prize, and competitive funding from the La Caixa Foundation and a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant. Beyond research, she is deeply committed to science communication and public engagement, having led multiple initiatives over several years to promote scientific literacy in the general public.

Ann Graybiel
MIT McGovern Institute, USA

Ann Graybiel studies the basal ganglia, forebrain structures that are profoundly important for normal brain function. Dysfunction in these regions is implicated in neurologic and neuropsychiatric disorders ranging from Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease to obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression, and addiction. Graybiel’s laboratory is uncovering circuits underlying both the neural deficits related to these disorders, as well as the role that the basal ganglia play in guiding normal learning, motivation, and behavior.

Christian Lüscher
University of Geneva, Switzerland

Christian Lüscher, a trained neurologist, is a Full Professor at the Department of Basic Neurosciences at UNIGE, and also works as a physician at the Neurology Service of HUG. His research focuses on exploring the brain circuits involved in addiction disorders, particularly investigating the mechanisms of motivated behavior.

Christian Lüscher’s groundbreaking work has been recognized with numerous awards for their significant contributions in the field of addictions. His studies have revealed how certain addictive substances, such as cocaine, alter synaptic plasticity and affect the neural circuits of the reward system. Driven by a passion for technological advancements, he has been a pioneer in utilizing optogenetics and deep brain stimulation in his research to identify therapeutic approaches against drug addiction. Within the scope of Synapsy, he aims to extend his research to address food disorders.

James Surmeier
Northwestern University, USA

James Surmeier directs a research program focused on the molecular, cellular, and network mechanisms that govern the basal ganglia in both health and disease. Employing a combination of electrophysiological, optical, and genetic techniques in mouse models, his group has made major contributions to understanding how dopamine and other neuromodulators shape intrinsic and synaptic mechanisms underlying basal ganglia function. Their research has provided critical insights into how these processes are altered in conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and chronic pain.

Surmeier’s group has also significantly advanced the understanding of pathogenesis and selective neuronal vulnerability in Parkinson’s disease, identifying Cav1 Ca²⁺ channels and mitochondrial stress as potential drivers of disease. Supported by epidemiological evidence, these findings have led to Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials aimed at disease modification in early-stage Parkinson’s disease patients. This work continues with the goal of developing more effective strategies to slow or stop disease progression.

His research has received support from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and various private foundations. Surmeier also serves in an editorial capacity for several leading scientific journals, including *Science Advances*, *Neuron*, *Movement Disorders*, and the *Journal of Clinical Investigation*.

Margaret E. Rice
New York University, USA

Margaret E. Rice, Ph.D. is a Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Neurosurgery and Professor of Neuroscience at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Rice’s research is focused on mechanism and regulation of axonal dopamine release in the striatum and somatodendritic dopamine release from dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra. Her lab identified roles for acetylcholine, glutamate, GABA, insulin, and leptin that can promote or inhibit axonal dopamine release and investigated SNARE proteins required for somatodendritic dopamine release. Many of these findings have challenged conventional models of neurotransmission for both striatum and midbrain. Recently, her lab discovered that aerobic exercise leads to enhanced dopamine release and motor improvement following in wild-type and Parkinson’s disease model mice, which they are currently investigating using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry and patch-clamp electrophysiology in ex vivo brain slices, fiber photometry in vivo, immunohistochemistry, and behavioral testing. Overall, Dr. Rice’s work has contributed to the understanding of striatal and midbrain physiology, with implications for Parkinson’s disease, addiction, and metabolic disorders. She has served on NIH and international review panels and held leadership positions in the International Society for Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience and on the Parkinson’s Foundation Scientific Advisory Board.

Peter Dayan
MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Germany

Peter Dayan is a Director at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics and a Professor at the University of Tübingen.

His interests include affective decision making, neural reinforcement learning and computational psychiatry.

Rui Costa
Allen Institute, USA

Rui Costa, PhD, DVM, is the President and CEO of the Allen Institute. His laboratory develops and uses genetic, electrophysiological, optical, and behavioral approaches to investigate the neurobiology of action in health and disease. His laboratory uncovered fundamental  neural circuit mechanisms in the basal ganglia underlying movement and learning, with particular insights into role of different dopamine cell types, and the different projection pathways of the striatum. These findings have implications for movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease. He has received several awards such as the Ariëns Kappers Medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Young Investigator Award from SFN and is an elected member of EMBO and the National Academy of Medicine. 

Yulong Li
Peking University, China

Dr. Yulong Li, a professor at the School of Life Sciences, Peking University, is a researcher at the PKU-THU Center for Life Sciences, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at PKU, New Cornerstone Science Laboratory. He got his B.S. from Peking University and his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Duke University, followed by postdoctoral research at Stanford University. Since 2012, he established his lab at Peking University. His research centers on the ‘synapse’, the fundamental unit for the communication between neurons. He carries two layers of research: first, he develops cutting-edge research tools, namely advanced imaging probes, to untangle the complexity of the nervous system in space and in time; second, capitalizing on the advancement of research toolkits, he studies the regulation of synaptic transmission, focusing on the modulation of presynaptic transmitter release in health and disease conditions. His research group has successfully developed a series of novel genetically encoded optical probes called GPCR Activation-Based (GRAB) sensors for imaging neuromodulators such as acetylcholine, monoamines, purines, lipids, and neuropeptides. These probes have allowed, probably for the first time, rapid, chemical- and cell-specific in vivo detection in multiple organisms ranging from flies, zebrafish, and mice to songbirds.