The main event for the SSN during this first trimester of 2005 was of course our annual meeting in Zürich. For the first time, our “one day” annual meeting taking place on a Saturday was replaced by a “two day” joint meeting together with the USGEB (on Thursday and Friday February 17-18th), followed however by our traditional “one day” meeting with a clinical society, the Swiss Society of Biological Psychiatry (on Saturday February 19th). Altogether, it was a widely shared opinion that the scientific level of the meeting was excellent, in particular some brilliant plenary lectures, which would have deserved a somewhat more numerous attendance. The issue of future collaboration of the SSN with the USGEB will certainly be one of the many strategic issues that the SSN council will have to evaluate in the future in order to pursue the development of our society.
The SSN council is grateful to the local organizers, in particular Prof. M. Peter and our former president Prof. J.M. Fritschy, for having put together a scientifically very rich meeting. On the point of view of the SSN, the “three day” joint meeting had the advantage to maintain our traditional aim of merging basic and clinical research in the field of neuroscience on Saturday and, in addition, to offer to our members on Thursday and Friday the opportunity to interact with basic researchers of other fields. Moreover, as usual, emphasis was put on young scientists, for instance with the “best poster award” attributed on each of the three days of the meeting to three outstanding poster presentations. The list of awardees can be found on the web site of the SSN, in addition to the possibility given to our members to download the abstract book of the annual meeting.
