The McGovern Institute Symposium on New Frontiers in Brain Research was held in Tsinghua’s Main Building on February 24th and 25th. Professor Shi Yigong, Vice Director of Tsinghua’s Institute of Biomedicine, hosted the Symposium. Professor Robert Desimone, Director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Tsinghua University Vice President Xie Weihe attended the opening ceremony.

The symposium featured academic reports by renowned scientists and experts in brain study, including Dr. Lu Bai, Chief of the Section on Neural Development and Plasticity of the National Institutes of Health in the USA, Professor Rao Yi, Dean of the Peking University School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua Professor Cheng Jing, Tsinghua Professor Liu Guosong, as well as experts from MIT, University College London, Tsinghua Univeristy, Peking University, Bejing Normal University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China’s National Institute of Biological Sciences.

Professor Hu Heping, Tsinghua Senior Officer, and Tsinghua Deputy President Chen Jining met and had a discussion with Professor Desimone on February 23rd. Tsinghua’s Institute of Biomedicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s McGovern Institute for Brain Research signed a collaboration agreement on January 14, 2008 to further enhance ongoing joint brain research efforts. (By Li Han,http://news.tsinghua.edu.cn)