Current Lecture Season

All lectures will be in person in Lipsett Amphitheater, Building 10, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET (new time) with remote viewing at https://videocast.nih.gov.

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WALS 2024–2025 WALS Season season poster

Deciphering the Neural Code of Speech

Edward Chang, M.D.
UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences

NIH Director’s Lecture

Dr. Edward Chang is a neurosurgeon who treats adults with difficult-to-control epilepsy, brain tumors, trigeminal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm and movement disorders. He specializes in advanced brain mapping methods to preserve crucial areas for speech and motor functions in the brain. He also has extensive experience with implantable devices that stimulate specific nerves to relieve seizure, movement, pain and other disorders. He is the Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery. Chang's research focuses on the brain mechanisms for speech, movement, emotion, and learning.

Of Flies and Men – Harnessing the Power of Drosophila to Decipher the Molecular Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration

Daniela Zarnescu, Ph.D.
Penn State, College of Medicine

The Zarnescu Laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms of aging and neurodegenerative diseases with a focus on RNA processing and cellular metabolism. We use a combination of molecular, genetic, bioinformatic and pharmacological tools, and a diverse array of experimental models, including fruit flies, cultured cells and patient tissues. We also seek to develop therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders.

Targeting Aging, Longevity and Rejuvenation

Vadim Gladyshev, Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School

Florence Mahoney Lecture on Aging

Vadim N. Gladyshev is a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, who specializes in antioxidant biology. He is known for his characterization of the human selenoproteome. He is also known for his work on the effects of aging in humans. He has conducted studies on whether organisms can acquire cellular damage from their food; the role selenium plays as a micro-nutrient with significant health benefits; In 2013 he won the NIH Pioneer Award. In 2021, he was elected member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences.

Dissecting Neurobiological Mechanisms of ASD: From Genes to Circuits

Guoping Feng, Ph.D.
McGovern Institute

Guoping Feng joined the McGovern Institute in 2010 and current serves as its associate director. He is a faculty member in the brain and cognitive sciences department, where he holds the James W. (1963) and Patricia T. Poitras Professorship. Feng is also the director of model systems and neurobiology in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute.

Ovarian Aging: A Target for Geroprotection in Women

Yousin Suh, Ph.D.
Columbia University, Department of Genetics and Development

Yousin Suh is the Charles and Marie Robertson professor of reproductive sciences in obstetrics and gynecology, professor of genetics and development, and director of reproductive aging at Columbia University. She investigates the (epi)genetic component that underlies the interface of intrinsic aging and disease. Her approach is based on the identification of (epi)genome sequence variants associated with age-related disease risk or its opposite, that is, an unusual resistance to such disease.

TBA

Lisa Barnes, Ph.D.
Rush University Medical Center

Robert S. Gordon Jr. Lecture

Lisa L. Barnes, PhD is the Alla V. and Solomon Jesmer Professor of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine and a cognitive neuropsychologist within the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center. She is also the Associate Director of the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in biopsychology and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, Davis. She joined the faculty of Rush as an assistant professor in 1999. Dr.

The Virus Microenvironment in 2D and 3D

Ileana M. Cristea, Ph.D.
Princeton University

George Khoury Lecture

Ileana Cristea is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Her laboratory investigates mechanisms of cellular defense during infection with human viruses.

Immunology From First Principles

Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.
Yale School of Medicine

William E. Paul Lecture

Ruslan Medzhitov was born in 1966 in Tashkent. He earned a Bachelor of Science at Tashkent State University before going on to pursue a PhD in biochemistry at Moscow State University. In 1992 he read an article by Charles Janeway about a hypothetical flip-flop triggered innate immunity. 

The Emotional Brain: Role in Depression and Addiction

Huda Akil, Ph.D.
Michigan Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan

Huda Akil is a Syrian-American neuroscientist whose research has contributed to the understanding of the neurobiology of emotions, including pain, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Akil and her colleagues are best known for providing the first physiological evidence for a role of endorphins in the brain and demonstrating that endorphins are activated by stress and can cause pain inhibition.

Mechanisms and Meaning for Smell

Sandeep Robert Datta, M.D., Ph.D.
Havard Medical School

The brain allows animals to successfully interact with a natural world that is rich with opportunity and rife with danger. These interactions are mediated by sensation and movement, which are used by animals to learn about their environment and to make useful predictions about the future. A major challenge facing neuroscience is to understand how the brain builds meaningful patterns of movement in unrestrained settings where animals can freely sense and act based upon their own motivations and desires.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 20, 2024