History of the CNS

The Centre for Neuroscience (CNS) was established as an institute of Flinders University in 1977, and was the first such multidisciplinary centre in the neurosciences to be established in an Australian university. The foundation Convenor of the CNS was Professor Laurie Geffen, who was succeeded by Professor Marcello Costa, Professor John Willoughby, Associate Professor Judy Morris and Prof Simon Brookes. The number of members of the CNS has stayed remarkably constant (average of 42 full members, 14 associate members, 15 students members per year).

The major forum for scientific interchange since inception of the centre has been the weekly Neuroscience Seminars. Increased demand for regular meetings of CNS members lead to development of NeuroLunch as a more informal forum for discussion of preliminary ideas and techniques. The Centre attracts a steady stream of international and interstate visitors to present seminars and visit laboratories for periods of several weeks to months. Until the early 90s, the Centre received sponsorship from SmithKline French and Merck Sharp and Dohme for Visiting Fellowships and Professorships. The generous support of GlaxoSmithKline (formerly SmithKline French and SmithKline Beecham) for our 2 student prizes since 1980 has rewarded the very high standard of student seminar presentations. In recent years students in the CNS have become a cohesive and proactive force both in the Centre, and within the wider School of Medicine, initiating many activities to support and inform each other on research and life issues.

The Centre has developed and maintained a high standing in the national and international research communities for the quality of its research. This success can be at least partly attributed to the maintenance and upgrading of high quality common service equipment and facilities since inception of the School of Medicine. A recent expansion of such facilities occurred with establishment of the Flinders Microscopy and Image Analysis Facility. This facility enabled development of new capabilities such as confocal microscopy and digital image capture and analysis, to enhance existing capabilities in electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy.

CNS members were instrumental in establishment of the Australian Neuroscience Society, and many have held executive positions in the society. Members of the Centre have played major roles in organizing national meetings of the Society and associated symposia and workshops, as well as organizing other national conferences. Members of the CNS formed the Organising Committee for the 2003 Meeting of the ANS, held in January at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

The avenues of communication between CNS members, and with the outside world, have been improved dramatically in recent years through establishment of the CNS website, and weekly email notices via NeuroNews. Our main report of activities for each year has continued to be the hard copy CNS Annual Report. Compilation of this report, together with ongoing administrative tasks such as mailing of seminar notices and maintenance of membership information, constitutes important administrative support without which the CNS could not have operated so smoothly for such a long period. This task has been carried out extremely efficiently by secretaries/administrative officers in the Department of Physiology and the Department of Anatomy & Histology.

Members of the CNS participate in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Medicine, Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Cognitive Science and Social Sciences, as well as supervising research students in medical electives, honours, masters and PhD. Members also play a major role in postgraduate medical training, particularly in Neurology and Psychiatry. CNS members are very active in many aspects of public education including public lectures, media interviews, school visits, laboratory tours and participation in the CSIRO student research scheme.

Updated February 27, 2007