A Molecular Geneticist's Approach to Understanding the Fly Brain
Richard M. Furlaud Distinguished Lecture
Event Details
- Type
- Friday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
-
Gerry Rubin, Ph.D., vice president and executive director, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus
- Speaker bio(s)
-
The functional elements of the nervous system and the neuronal circuits that process information are not genes, but cells. Therefore, the classical genetic methods that were so powerful in elucidating embryonic development and other processes in Drosophila melanogaster will not be adequate to probe the function of the nervous system. Instead, argues Dr. Rubin, scientists will need to be able to assay and manipulate the function of individual neuronal cells and cell types with the same facility as they can now assay and manipulate the function of individual genes. The intellectual framework for such an approach has been articulated by several research groups over the past ten years, but current tools have proved inadequate for the job. Dr. Rubin will discuss efforts to develop and apply some of the tools that will be required for a comprehensive, "brain-wide" analysis of the anatomy and function of the fly brain at the level of individual cell types and circuits.
Dr. Rubin earned his Ph.D. in 1974 from the University of Cambridge. He did postdoctoral work with David S. Hogness at the Stanford University School of Medicine and held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and the Carnegie Institution of Washington before moving to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983 to assume the John D. MacArthur Professorship. Rubin was appointed an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in 1987. He moved to HHMI headquarters in 2000 and assumed overall planning responsibility for the Janelia Farm Research Campus in 2002, and was appointed its first director in 2003. Dr. Rubin has received numerous awards, including the American Chemical Society Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the National Academy of Sciences U.S. Steel Foundation Award in Molecular Biology and the Genetics Society of America Medal. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of The Royal Society.
- Open to
- Public
- Host
- Hermann Steller
- Reception
- Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge
- Contact
- Gloia Phipps
- Phone
- (212) 327-8967
- Sponsor
-
Gloia Phipps
(212) 327-8967
phippsg@rockefeller.edu