Puerto Rican science was well represented in the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) recently held in Chicago, IL.  More than a hundred Puerto Ricans represented us in different sub-disciplines of neuroscience. This is the largest neuroscience conference worldwide, with more than 30,000 participants representing more than 80 countries. The event provides an ideal environment for the dissemination of recent scientific findings and to promote collaboration between scientists and help in the development of tools and ideas to advance neuroscience research.

Un bembé boricua:  PR Social PR 2015

Puerto Rican neuroscientists meet annually at the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience in what we call the "Puerto Rico Social". The activity's main objective is to gather the community of Puerto Rican neuroscientists around the world to keep the  collaborative flame alive, share all the recent scientific findings and spend time as friends. The event was coordinated by students and professors of the Institute of Neurobiology and the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico this year. CienciaPR, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the "Nikon Center for Excellence" at the University of Puerto Rico were our sponsors.

Amongst laughter, local pizza, and joyous celebration, we were welcomed to the University of Illinois in Chicago by Dr. Aixa Alfonso (Professor at the University of Illinois - Chicago) and Dr. Daniel Colón Ramos (CienciaPR founder and professor at the University of Yale). Subsequently several Puerto Rican scientists shared progress of their research and their latest findings. Among the presenters were Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez (City University of New York), Dr. Ramón Jorquera (Central University of the Caribbean), Dr. Millie Rincón (University of Pittsburgh) and Keven Laboy-Juarez (University of California - Berkeley).

We also had a special guest, Dr. Edgardo Falcon-Morales of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who guided us about opportunities in their federal proposals Institute. Dr. José Lasalde (Vice President of Research and Technology UPR) provided a summary of progress in research carried out at the Molecular Sciences Building at the University of Puerto Rico and Dr. Carmen Maldonado (Professor UPR - Río Piedras) took the opportunity to provide information on newly opened positions in the Department of Biology of her campus.