Bridging Brains. The first event of the joint symposium between HUN-REN KOKI and ION Shanghai

How far we have come from the Spanish Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who practically single-handedly achieved the results for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1906, much to the annoyance of his equally outstanding rival and scientific opponent, the Italian Camillo Golgi, with whom he shared the prize. As a matter of fact, Golgi did not work with a large team either, but even the Nobel Prizes awarded to the Curie couple and Marie Curie alone were not the result of major collaborations – and they spent most of the substantial sums they received alongside the prizes, on experiments.

In international competition, outstanding scientific performance is a matter of life and death, because only with such performance can one win prestigious grants that can further help achieve breakthrough results in an experimental science that requires large amounts of materials and equipment and is costly to operate.

An institute whose scientific performance has been world-class for years also indicates that its financial support is secure. The Institute of Neuroscience (ION) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Shanghai, is one such example, and the recognition of HUN-REN KOKI's scientific achievements is reflected in our long-standing collaboration. So far, there have been two visits frrom both sides, during which scientific symposia were held at both locations.

This year, significant progress has been made. Entitled Bridging Brains: from Molecules to Behavior, the two-day symposium organized to strengthen Hungarian-Chinese cooperation in neuroscience invited several prominent European neuroscientists in addition to the leading researchers of the two institutes.  The significance of the event is further highlighted by the fact that it is considered the first in a series of annual events. 

The event took place at the HUN-REN Research Center for Natural Sciences on December 3-4, 2025.

In addition to the speakers, who presented their often astonishing results, the Chinese and Hungarian organizers also deserve credit for the excellently organized program. 

It is a new, or at least uncommon, solution that some participants in the poster section were given the opportunity to present their results for 3-5 minutes immediately in a session after the "big" presentations. All young lecturers performed their task well, and many of them did so with the confidence befitting experienced presenters and mature researchers, reaping well-deserved success. Another excellent idea was to have one Chinese and one Hungarian PhD student or postdoctoral researcher as moderators/chairs of each section. They did a great job, even asking questions to the presenters on more than one occasion.

The poster section at the TTK was spacious and well-lit, with plenty of visitors, questions, and discussions.

The only drawback of the program's abundance was that many people, especially those who had been there since nine in the morning, were unable to wait for the closing lecture to begin at six o'clock. Special respect goes to the speakers who gave their presentations despite this, but also to the audience who stayed, many of whom even asked questions.

All in all, we were able to participate in the first event of a very promising initiative. I am sure that everyone found something for themselves, heard and learned something that made it worthwhile to come, and will return with the same expectations the next time they can participate.

The main sponsors of the event were the CAS-ANSO Conference Grant (CAS-ANSO-C2A-2024-04) and the Hungarian Neuroscience Society.

The members of the Hungarian organizing team were: Judit Makara, Erik Hrabovszky, Ferenc Mátyás, Éva Mikics, and Zoltán Nusser.