Inaugural Symposium: The Future of the Brain

Thursday, December 1, 2005

8:30 am - 5:45 pm

Atrium, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory

43 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA

Agenda

Webcast

Speaker Biographies

On Thursday, December 1st, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, named in honor of Barbara and Jeffry Picower, celebrated its formal opening with a major scientific symposium entitled "The Future of the Brain." Moderated by Ira Flatow of National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," the symposium focused on the future of neuroscience research. MIT President Susan Hockfield opened the day's discussion. The morning session featured talks by five Nobel Laureates including Susumu Tonegawa, Director of the Picower Institute, and James D. Watson, Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

The first afternoon session, entitled "Change Your Mind," focused on the impact of the neuroscience of learning and memory on human health. The session speakers included Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Li-Huei Tsai, of Harvard Medical School and a molecular neuroscientist studying the mechanism of neurodegenerative diseases, and Kerry Ressler of Emory University, an expert on memory extinction and its use for curing PTSD.

The second afternoon session entitled "Expand Your Mind" looked at the relationship between the human brain and the mind. Christof Koch of CalTech will spoke on the biological basis of consciousness. Alexander Shulgin, a synthetic chemist who has done research in the area of psychedelic drugs, addressed the resident complexity and creativity in the brain. Philosopher Patricia Churchland of UCSD spoke to the relationship between philosophic inquiry and brain research.

AGENDA

9:00 - 9:10

Welcome: MIT President Susan Hockfield

What We May Find: Five Nobel Laureates on the Future of Brain Research

9:10 - 9:35

Susumu Tonegawa, MIT The Picower Institute

9:35 - 10:00

Sydney Brenner, Salk Institute

10:00 - 10:25

Richard Axel, Columbia University

10:45 - 11:10

Eric Kandel, Columbia University

11:10 - 11:35

James Watson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

11:35 - 12:35

Moderated Panel Discussion with Ira Flatow, National Public Radio

Change Your Mind: Memory and Disease

2:30 - 2:55

Thomas Insel, NIH/NIMH

2:55 - 3:20

Li-Huei Tsai, Harvard Medical School

3:20 - 3:45

Kerry Ressler, Emory University School of Medicine

Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness

4:05 - 4:25

Alexander Shulgin, Chemist and Author

4:25 - 4:45

Christof Koch, California Institute of Technology

4:45 - 5:05

Patricia Churchland, University of California San Diego

5:05 - 5:20

Moderated Panel Discussion with Ira Flatow, Audience Q&A

Presentation of the Picower Manifesto

5:20 - 5:45

Susumu Tonegawa

WEBCAST

The Picower Institute Inaugural Symposium: The Future of the Brain was webcast live on Thursday, December 1st. To view the webcast please proceed to MIT World.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Richard Axel

Richard Axel holds the title of University Professor at Columbia University. Axel's laboratory is interested in how sensory information is represented in the brain. Olfactory sensory neurons expressing a given receptor project to spatially invariant loci in the first relay in the brain to create a topographic map of olfactory information. The Axel lab has performed imaging experiments in concert with electrophysiologic recordings to determine how this map is represented in higher olfactory centers to allow for the discrimination of odors and appropriate behavioral responses. Education: A.B. Columbia University, New York, NY; M.D. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Axel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2004 with Linda Buck.

Sydney Brenner

Sydney Brenner, a distinguished professor, is one of the past century’s leading pioneers in genetics and molecular biology. Most recently, Brenner has been studying vertebrate gene and genome evolution. His work in this area has resulted in new ways of analyzing gene sequences, which has developed a new understanding of the evolution of vertebrates. Among his many notable discoveries, Brenner established the existence of messenger RNA and demonstrated how the order of amino acids in proteins is determined. He also conducted pioneering work with the roundworm, a model organism now widely used to study genetics. His research with Caenorhabditis elegans garnered insights into aging, nerve cell function and controlled cell death, or apoptosis. Education: Medicine and Science, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; PhD Chemistry, Oxford University, England; Postdoctoral fellow, Virus Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley. Selected awards and honors: Fellow of the Royal Society; Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences; Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, 1971; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2002.

Patricia Churchland

Patricia Smith Churchland has a B. A. from the University of British Columbia, an M. A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B. Phil. from the University of Oxford. Her curiosity about the philosophical implications of advances in brain science matured when she was a junior professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada. Aided by a Woodrow Wilson Faculty Development Grant (1975-76), she studied neurology at the University of Manitoba Medical School, and learned basic neuroscience in the Jordan spinal cord lab. She and her colleague-husband, Paul Churchland, came to the University of California, San Diego in 1984, where she pioneered the subfield of neurophilosophy. She is also an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute.
Patricia Churchland is currently chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of California, San Diego, where she is a researcher in neurophilosophy – the interface between traditional philosophy questions concerning consciousness, knowledge, meaning, and free will and developments in neuroscience. Her best known book is Neurophilosophy (MIT Press 1986). A more recent treatment of neurophilosophical issues is found in her book, Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy (2002; MIT Press.) She is also co-author with T. J. Sejnowski of The Computational Brain (MIT 1992), co-author with Paul Churchland of On The Contrary (MIT 1998) and co-editor with Rodolfo Llinas of The Mind-Brain Continuum (MIT Press 1996). Still in progress, her latest book is Ten Unsolved Problems in Neuroscience, co-authored with David Eagleman.
She and her husband, Paul M. Churchland are the focus of two recent books: The Churchlands and Their Critics (ed. R. M. McCauley; Blackwells, 1996) and The Churchlands, by W. Hirstein (Wadsworth 2002). She has been president of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991. She has done television work, including an interview with Bill Moyers for The World of Ideas, Charlie Rose on NightLine, a debate with John Searle on Britain’s Channel 4, and appearances on The Human Quest (PBS), The Universe Within (Discovery Channel), Changing the Mind (TBS/CNN), and a number of interviews for European television.
Several recent papers include “Self-representastion in nervous systems”, Science 2002 vol 296 pp. 308-310; “How do neurons know?” Daedalus Winter, 2004; Brain wide shut, New Scientist 30 April 2005; review of The Ethical Brain, by Michael Gazzaniga The American Scientist June 2005.

Ira Flatow

Veteran NPR science correspondent and award-winning TV journalist Ira Flatow is the host of Talk Of The Nation: Science Friday®. He anchors the show each Friday, bringing radio and Internet listeners world wide a lively, informative discussion on science, technology, health, space and the environment. Ira is also founder and president of TalkingScience, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit company dedicated to creating radio, TV and Internet projects that make science “user friendly.”
Flatow describes his work as the challenge “to make science and technology a topic for discussion around the dinner table.” He has shared that enthusiasm with the public for more than 35 years.
His most recent book is entitled They All Laughed ... From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives (HarperCollins, New York).
On television, Flatow has discussed the latest cutting edge science stories on a variety of programs, including the four-part PBS series Big Ideas. His numerous TV credits include six years as host and writer for the Emmy-award-winning Newton's Apple on PBS, and science reporter for CBS This Morning. He wrote, produced and hosted Transistorized!, an hour-long documentary about the history of the transistor, which aired on PBS. He has talked science on many TV talk shows including Merv Griffin, Today, Charlie Rose, and Oprah.
On the Internet, his Science Friday Kids' Connection web pages won the award for one of the top 500 web sites in the country given out by Home PC Magazine. His Podcasts are among the most listened to on the Internet, frequently in the top-ten of all downloads on the iTunes web site.In print, Ira’s writing have ranged from Woman's Day, ESPN Magazine, American Lawyer, to The Los Angeles Times.
His recent honors include: the National Science Board Public Service Award (2005), World Economic Forum Media Fellowship, AAAS Journalism award (2000), the Carl Sagan Award (1999).
His hobbies include flying, gardening (especially orchids), tropical fish and electronic gadgets. He loves the theater.

Susan Hockfield

Susan Hockfield is the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been a strong advocate of the vital role that science, technology, and the research university play in the world, and she brings to the MIT presidency an exceptional record of achievement in serving faculty and student interests. A noted neuroscientist whose research has focused on the development of the brain, Dr. Hockfield is the first life scientist to lead MIT. Before assuming the presidency of the Institute, she was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology and provost at Yale University. At MIT, she holds a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Thomas Insel

Thomas R. Insel, M.D., is Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the component of the National Institutes of Health charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental disorders. With a budget of over $1.4 billion, the NIMH leads the nation’s research on disorders that affect an estimated 44 million Americans, including one in five children.
Immediately prior to his appointment as Director, which marks his return to NIMH after an 8-year hiatus, Dr. Insel was Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University. There, he was founding director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, one of the largest science and technology centers funded by the National Science Foundation and, concurrently, director of an NIH-funded Center for Autism Research. From 1994 to 1999, he was Director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta. While at Emory, Dr. Insel continued the line of research he had initiated at NIMH studying the neurobiology of complex social behaviors in animals. Early in his NIMH research career, which extended from 1979 to 1994, Dr. Insel conducted clinical research on obsessive-compulsive disorder, conducting some of the first treatment trials for OCD using the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) class of medications. He has published over 200 scientific articles and four books, including the Neurobiology of Parental Care (with Michael Numan) in 2003.
Dr. Insel has served on numerous academic, scientific, and professional committees, including 10 editorial boards. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and is a recipient of several awards [A. E. Bennett Award from the Society for Biological Psychiatry, Curt Richter Prize from the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology, Outstanding Service Award from the U.S. Public Health Service, and a Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD)]. Dr. Insel graduated from the combined B.A.-M.D. program at Boston University in 1974. He did his internship at Berkshire Medical Center, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and his residency at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

Eric Kandel

Eric R. Kandel, M.D., is University Professor at Columbia, Fred Kavli Professor and Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Sciences and a Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. A graduate of Harvard College and N.Y.U. School of Medicine, Kandel trained in Neurobiology at the NIH and in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He joined the faculty of the College of Physician and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1974 as the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior.
Eric Kandel’s research has been concerned with the molecular mechanisms of memory storage in Aplysia and mice. Kandel has received fifteen honorary degrees, is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Science Academies of German and France. He has been recognized with the Albert Lasker Award, the Heineken Award of the Netherlands, the Gairdner Award of Canada, the Wolf Prize of Israel, the National Medal of Science USA and the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2000.

Christof Koch

Born in 1956 in the American Midwest, Christof Koch grew up in Holland, Germany, Canada, and Morocco, where he graduated from the Lycèe Descartes in 1974. He studied Physics and Philosophy at the University of Tübingen in Germany and was awarded his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1982.
After four years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Koch joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1986, where he is now the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology. He lives with his family in Pasadena, and loves to run and to climb.
The author of close to three hundred scientific papers and journal articles, and several books, Dr. Koch studies the biophysics of computation, and the neuronal basis of visual perception, attention, and consciousness. Together with his long-time collaborator, Francis Crick, he has pioneered the scientific study of consciousness.

Kerry Ressler

Dr. Ressler is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine and the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. He received a bachelor’s degree (course VII) focusing on molecular biology at MIT in 1990, and received an MD, PhD from Harvard Medical School in 1997. In 1992 at Harvard, he was the first student of Dr. Linda Buck, helping to identify the molecular organization of the odorant receptor family in mice, for which she shared the Nobel Prize with Richard Axel in 2004 Following his residency in Psychiatry, he trained with Michael Davis, PhD, a leading expert on amygdala function and behavior, with whom he continues to collaborate. His current work focuses on translational research that bridges molecular neurobiology with clinical research on fear and anxiety disorders. Clinically, he has recently received an NIH R01 to examine the genetics and endophenotypes which underlie Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Additionally, in his one-day-per-week clinic, he treats patients with severe affective, anxiety, and psychotic disorders. His laboratory examines the molecular biology and neural circuitry underlying the learning and unlearning of fear in a variety of behavioral and genetic approaches. Dr. Ressler has received several prestigious national research awards for his basic research, including the the Pfizer Fellowship in Biological Psychiatry, the Anxiety Disorders Association of America Junior Faculty Award, two NARSAD young investigator awards, a Rockefeller Brother’s Fund Young Investigator Scholarship, and K01 and R01 awards from the National Institutes of Mental Health.

Alexander Shulgin

Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, Ph.D., is a pharmacologist and chemist known for his creation of new psychoactive chemicals. Undergraduate studies at Harvard (at Cambridge) and the U.C. (at Berkeley) led to a B.A. in chemistry. After serving in the Navy, graduate research led to a Ph.D. in biochemistry (at Berkeley). In the late 50s and early 60s he did post-doctorate work in psychiatry and pharmacology at U.C. San Francisco and worked briefly as research director at BioRad Laboratories before becoming a senior research chemist at Dow Chemical Co. In 1960, Shulgin tried mescaline for the first time. He then experimented with synthesizing chemicals with structures similar to mescaline such as DOM. After leaving Dow in 1965 to become an independent consultant, Sasha taught public health at Berkeley and San Francisco General Hospital. In 1967, he was introduced to the possibilities of MDMA by an undergrad at San Francisco State University at a time when very few people had tried MDMA. Though Shulgin didn't invent the chemical, he did create a new synthesis process in 1976 and introduced the material to Leo Zeff, an Oakland psychologist who worked with psychedelics in his therapy practice. Zeff introduced hundreds of therapists to MDMA and word quickly spread outside the therapist community. Since that time, Shulgin has synthesized and bioassayed (self-tested) hundreds of psychoactive chemicals, recording his work in four books and more than two hundred papers. He is a fixture in the psychedelic community, speaking at conferences, granting frequent interviews, and instilling a sense of rational scientific thought into the world of self-experimentation and psychoactive ingestion.

Susumu Tonegawa

Susumu Tonegawa received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Diego. After postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute, he joined the Basel Institute for Immunology where he made the seminal discovery on the genetic origin of antibody diversity, for which he was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1981, he was appointed Professor of Biology at MIT and a member of the Center for Cancer Research. In 1994, he founded the Center for Learning and Memory at MIT which evolved into The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory of which he has been Director. Dr. Tonegawa’s current research interest is to decipher molecular, cellular and neuronal circuit mechanisms underlying memory. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he is a recipient of many awards including the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Order of Culture from the Emperor of Japan, the Bristol Myers Squibb Prize in Cancer Research, and the Albert and Mary Lasker Award.

Li-Huei Tsai

Dr. Tsai was born in Taipei, Taiwan. In 1984, she entered a Masters program in Veterinary Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She found herself drawn to research and moved on to a Ph.D. program at the University of Texas Southwestern. Under the direction of Bradford Ozanne she graduated in 1990 and then joined Ed Harlow's laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Massachusetts General Hospital for postdoctoral training in the area of cancer research and cell cycle regulation. During her time in the Harlow lab, she isolated two proteins prominently expressed in the nervous system, cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) and its regulatory activator p35. She was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School in 1994, where she dramatically switched her research direction by choosing to focus on brain development. Her work has helped explain how neurons navigate to the correct location during development of the brain. She was elected investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1997 and promoted to Professor of Pathology in 2002.
Another major research interest of the Tsai lab is the mechanism leading to neurodegenerative diseases associated with cognitive decline and dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease. Her findings have led to the hypothesis that deregulation of Cdk5, through conversion of p35 to p25, plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. Recently, the Tsai lab has also made contributions to understanding the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression.

James Watson

In 1953 James D. Watson, with Francis Crick, successfully proposed the double helical structure for DNA, a feat described by Sir Peter Medawar as "the greatest achievement of science in the twentieth century." For this work, he and Crick, together with Maurice Wilkins, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962. While a Professor at Harvard, Watson commenced a writing career that generated the seminal text, Molecular Biology of the Gene, the best-selling autobiographical volume, The Double Helix, and recently published DNA: The Secret of Life. Later, while leading the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, he was a driving force behind setting up the Human Genome Project, a major factor in his receipt in 1993 of the Copley Medal from the Royal Society that elected him a member in 1981. Among other honors, Watson was elected in 1962 to the National Academy of Sciences and, in 1977, received from President Ford the Medal of Freedom. During the academic year 1993-94, he was the Newton-Abraham Visiting Professor and a Visiting Fellow of Lincoln College. He has received honorary degrees from many universities including the University of Cambridge (1993) and the University of Oxford (1995). Dr. Watson received the National Medal of Science in December 1997, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal on July 4, 2000, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal awarded by the American Philosophical Society. Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed him an honorary Knight of the British Empire on January 1, 2002. In November 2003, Dr. Watson became Chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.