American Society for Neurochemistry
the Latest in Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology
|
The American Society for Neurochemistry the Latest in Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology |
|
Statements
from the 2005 Candidates for President
Elect Candidates: Council
Candidates: |
||
 |
MONICA J. CARSON is an associate professor in the Division of Biomedical Sciences of the University of California, Riverside and in the UCR/UCLA Thomas Haider Medical Program. Monica received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. F. Arthur McMorris at the Wistar Institute for her studies examining the role of IGF-1 in oligodendrocyte development and myelination in vivo. Monica subsequently did her post-doctoral studies with Drs. Milner and Sutcliffe in The Scripps Research Institute's Departments of Neuropharmacology and Molecular Biology, respectively. Monica's current research is focused on identifying the role of microglia in the healthy and diseased central nervous system. Monica is a member of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and NIH F03A fellowship review boards and her research is supported by grants from NIH. Monica has been a regular attendee of the society's meetings since graduate school. She has demonstrated her commitment to the society by her continued involvement in ASN committees including membership in the program committee (2002, 2003, 2005), public policy and education committee (2004-2005) and council (2001-2005). Monica is also the program chair for the 37th annual ASN meeting in Portland, Oregon in 2006.
|
|
 |
IAN D. DUNCAN is currently a Professor of Neurology in the Department of Medical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He graduated from the Glasgow University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1971 with the BVMS degree and a Ph.D. in 1975. After a further period of training there, he moved to the Montreal General Hospital, McGill University, where he spent five years in the laboratory of Dr. Albert Aguayo. While there he was a fellow at the Canadian MS Society and then a Scholar of the Medical Research Council of Canada. In 1982, he moved to the University of Wisconsin - Madison.His research focuses on genetic disorders of myelination and transplantation of glia into the CNS of the myelin mutants. In particular, his work is aimed at using such approaches in the treatment of multiple sclerosis and childhood disorders of myelination. He is actively involved in the field of embryonic and neural stem cell development and the production of glial cells for repair purposes. He served on the NIH study section, Neurology B-1. He is a founding member of the Scientific Work Group of the Myelin Project and was on the Scientific Advisory Board of Hunter's Hope. He is on the editorial board of Neuron Glia Biology and reviews for many other journals and funding agencies. He was elected in 1996 to a Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists for meritorious contributions to the literature. He has been a member of ASN since 1992 and was elected to the Council in 2001. He has attended most of the meetings during this time. Most recently he is serving as chair of the local host committee of the 2005 ASN annual meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. I look forward to helping to guide ASN through this decade and seeing the Society prosper through excellent meetings attended and run by an active and growing membership. A major goal will be to explore long-term funding mechanisms for the Society through corporate sponsorship and other possible avenues. |
|
 |
REGINA ARMSTRONG has a PhD in Neurobiology (1987) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she trained with Drs. Pierre Morell and Arrel Toews. She began regularly attending and presenting at ASN meetings during this graduate training in axonal transport and demyelination. Regina did her postdoctoral training with Dr. Monique Dubois-Dalcq at the NIH while investigating cellular responses of human and rodent oligodendrocyte progenitors. In 1991 she joined the faculty of Anatomy, Physiology, and Genetics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. She now holds the rank of Professor and is also the Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program. Regina's current research focus includes signaling molecules that regulate glial cell development and regeneration to promote CNS repair. She has served on the ASN Standing Rules Committee, the Publication and Education Committee, the Folch-Pi Award Committee, and the Nominating Committee as well as serving on Council from 1997-2001.
|
|
 |
RASHMI BANSAL, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Connecticut Medical School, having received her Ph.D. from Lucknow University, India. She has made a number of seminal contributions to the study of neural development with an emphasis on signal transduction mechanisms, leading to a current bibliography of 43 publications and book chapters. Her current NIH-funded research centers on the regulation by growth factors and glycosphingolipids of oligodendrocyte differentiation and myelin function, based in significant part on the development of a series of cre-lox directed receptor-null mice, and the relationship of these factors on Multiple Sclerosis. Dr. Bansal has been a member of ASN since 1988, and has regularly organized and presented at symposia, colloquia, workshops and poster sessions, as well as serving on a number of ASN committees, including the ASN Inter-American Cooperation Committee and Young Investigators Educational Enhancement Committee. She is also a contributing member of the International Society for Neurochemistry, American Society for Neurochemistry, American Society for Cell Biology, International Society for Developmental Neuroscience and the Society for Neuroscience, a reviewer for a number of both national and international research granting agencies, and a member of the editorial boards of four neuroscience journals.
|
|
 |
BABETTE FUSS has a PhD in Neuroscience from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. To broaden her expertise in investigating the biology of the myelin-forming cell of the CNS, the oligodendrocyte, she joined Wendy Macklin's laboratory at UCLA as a postdoctoral fellow in 1993. In 1995 she moved as part of Wendy Macklin's laboratory to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Since 1999 she has been an independent investigator at Virginia Commonwealth University. Research in her laboratory focuses on questions related to the role of oligodendrocyte-extracellular matrix interactions in myelination during normal development and under pathological, demyelinating conditions. Babette has been associated with the ASN from the beginning of her postdoctoral career and is actively promoting her students and postdoctoral fellows to participate in the society's events.
|
|
 |
VITTORIO GALLO has a PhD in Neurobiology & Biochemistry from the University of Rome, Italy, where he trained with Giulio Levi and Rita Levi-Montalcini. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied neuronal development in the cerebellar cortex and glutamate receptor channels in glia in London, UK at the MRC Developmental Neurobiology Unit and in the Department of Pharmacology, University College, respectively. He was a NATO Fellow at the NIH in the Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology, NICHD, before becoming a Tenure Track Investigator and Chief of the Unit on Neurobiology in 1992. In 1995 Vittorio became a Tenured Investigator and Chief of the Section on Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology, Laboratory of Cellular and Synaptic Neurophysiology, NICHD, NIH. In 2001, he moved to Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC, where he was recruited as Director of the Center for Neuroscience Research of Children's Research Institute. Vittorio's current research interests at Children's include postnatal neurogenesis, oligodendrocyte development, and astrocyte signaling. He is also interested in the relationship between deregulation of neural cell development and developmental disabilities. Vittorio has been associated with and a member of the ASN for a significant part of his career, regularly organizing and presenting at symposia, colloquia, and workshops.
|
|
 |
ROBIN MISKIMINS has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Arizona. She started working on myelin basic protein expression during her postdoctoral work at Yale University. She began her independent career in a research track position at the University of South Carolina where she continued working on MBP gene expression. She then moved to her current position as a faculty member at the University of South Dakota School of Medicine. She continues to pursue molecular mechanisms of MBP gene expression along with other studies on oligodendrocyte differentiation, focusing on cell cycle molecules and signaling pathways. She has been a member of ASN since her post-doctoral position and attends the meetings regularly. She has also served on the program committee for the annual meeting twice. She currently also serves on the Presidential Advisory Committee for ASN.
|
|
 |
ERIC J. MURPHY has a PhD in Biochemistry from The Ohio State University where he studied with Professor Lloyd Horrocks in the area of lipid alterations during neural trauma. After a brief stint at Cypros Pharmaceutical in Carlsbad, CA, Eric rejoined academia taking an Assistant Research Scientist position at Texas A & M University where he studied the role of cytosolic lipid binding proteins in the laboratory of Professor Friedhelm Schroeder. He was awarded a prestigious senior fellowship from the National Research Council, which permitted him to work in Stanley Rapoport's laboratory at the National Institute on Aging. Here he focused on the effect of neurodegenerative disease on brain lipid metabolism. In 2000, Eric joined the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Therapeutics at the University of North Dakota as an Assistant Professor. Here he has brought together kinetic modeling of lipid metabolism in vivo coupled with his expertise in cytosolic lipid binding proteins to study the role that these proteins have in brain lipid metabolism in human health and disease. In addition to his faculty position, he was recently appointed Chief Scientist of Agragen, a biotech company focused on plant made pharmaceuticals and North Dakota's first biotech- pharmaceutical based company. In 1999 he received the Jordi Folch-Pi award for his work in brain lipid neurochemistry. Eric has been an active member of ASN for 20 years, since early on in his graduate career. He regularly attends the annual meeting and has served as an organizer of and chaired a number of symposia and colloquia. He served as the chair of the local committee that bid to host the 2005 meeting in Grand Forks, ND. He has served on the meeting program committee and currently serves on the Jordi Folch-Pi Award committee.
|
|
 |
LUCIA NOTTERPEK obtained her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1994. During her postdoctoral studies, under the guidance of Dr. Eric Shooter at Stanford University, she became interested in hereditary neurodegenerative disorders. Since 1999, Lucia has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida, where she is now being promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Her laboratory investigates the roles of peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22) in peripheral nerve biology and in the pathogenesis of hereditary demyelinating neuropathies. A main goal of her research is to determine if modulation of protein chaperones and protein degradation pathways could provide a therapeutic approach for PMP22-associated hereditary neuropathies. She has authored and coauthored twenty-nine peer-reviewed publications. Her research efforts are being supported by funds from the NIH-NINDS, the NIH-NIEHS and the National Muscular Dystrophy Association. She is the recipient of the 2004 Jordi Folch-Pi Memorial Award from the ASN. She has been affiliated with the ASN since her graduate studies and has served or is currently serving on various ASN committees, including the Marion W. Kies Award committee, the Presidential Advisory Board and the 2005 Annual Meeting Program Committee
|
|
 |
THOMAS N. SEYFRIED has a Ph.D. in biochemical genetics from the University of Illinois, Urbana and an MS degree in genetics from Illinois State University, Normal. Tom began his advanced training in neurochemical research in the Yale University neurology department with Robert Yu, where he investigated ganglioside biochemistry in neurodegenerative diseases. He received a research Career Development Award and was an Assistant Professor there before moving to Boston College in 1985 where his is now Professor of Neurochemistry and Genetics. Besides an active research program in the areas of epilepsy, ganglioside storage diseases, and brain tumors, Tom also teaches basic neurochemistry to undergraduate and graduate students. Tom has been associated with and a member of the ASN since 1977 and has organized numerous colloquia and workshops. He also served as chair of the Young Investigator Travel Awards Committee.
|
|
 |
DAVID SHINE has a Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX, where he trained with Bernard Haber. Before that he received a MA in Zoology at the University of Texas at Austin in the laboratory of Regino Perez-Polo. He received his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School with Richard Sidman and then joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor until he moved to Baylor College of Medicine in 1988. He is currently an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery with joint appointments in the Departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Neuroscience and a member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine. His research interests focuses on the molecular and cellular basis of disease and trauma of the nervous system. Projects include the use of neurotrophic factors to ameliorate degeneration and to induce neuroplasticity in the CNS using gene delivery technologies. Dr. Shine has been active in the American Society for Neurochemistry starting in his graduate training and has served on the Standing Rules Committee and the Internet Committee that he chaired from 1995 to 2003. He has been a member of several program and local host committees and has organized and participated in ASN symposia. He created ASN's current web site and has maintained it since 1997 as well as implementing electronic announcements, online surveys, and abstract submissions. He was a member of Council from 1999 to 2001 and Secretary from 2001 to 2005. In addition to his service to ASN he has served on several ISN committees and has been nominated for the position of ISN Treasurer for the 2005 - 2009 term.
|
|
|
|
|
TERESA WOOD has a Ph.D. in Biology with an emphasis in Molecular Neurobiology from UCLA. She started studying neural development and neural gene expression during her Ph.D. work. Her interests in developmental neurobiology continued through her postdoctoral studies first at SUNY, Stony Brook and then at Columbia University. Upon establishing her own laboratory in 1993 at Penn State College of Medicine, Terri continued her work on growth factor regulation of neural development and CNS injury. She also initiated studies on regulation of oligodendrocyte generation and has expanded this work to include investigations into the mechanisms of proliferation, survival and differentiation of oligodendroglia. Since 1994, she has obtained funding for these studies from the MS Society and from the NIH. Terri has been associated with and a member of the ASN since 1999. Members of her laboratory also have regularly attended and presented at the ASN meetings since that time. She was a member of the ASN Scientific Planning Committee for the 2003 meeting and has been a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee for ASN since 2004. |
