The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Hugo Bellen, Ph.D., D.V.M., investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; professor, departments of molecular and human genetics and neuroscience, director, Program in Developmental Biology, Baylor College of Medicine

Speaker bio(s)

To better understand the molecular mechanisms that cause neurodegenerative phenotypes in flies, Dr. Bellen and his colleagues have been performing forward genetic screens by isolating mutations in essential genes that cause a loss of neuronal function. They screened for a progressive loss of amplitudes in electroretinograms in mutant clones in the eye, followed by transmission electron microscopy, and have identified approximately 700 mutations that correspond to about 120 complementation groups. Preliminary mapping data of about half the genes show that numerous genes encode mitochondrial genes as well as genes that affect vesicular transport to the lysosomes and autophagy. For example, the fly and C. elegans homologues of a gene that causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the VapB gene, disrupts mitochondrial dynamics in muscles in a non-autonomous fashion. This pathway depends on growth cone guidance receptors (Robo and LAR) that are expressed on muscles. Their data indicate that neurons control muscle mitochondrial activity via a novel hormonal path.

Dr. Bellen received a D.V.M., magna cum laude, from the University of Ghent, and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, Davis. He was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in William J. Gehring's lab at University of Basel. He joined Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 as an assistant professor in the departments of human and molecular genetics and cell biology. He was promoted to professor in 1997. He is Charles Darwin Professor in Genetics in the department of molecular and human genetics, March of Dimes Professor in Developmental Biology and Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine. He has been an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1989.

Among his awards, Dr. Bellen has received the 1995 Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Excellence in Research Award and the 1999 Dean's Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Education and the 2011 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of California, Davis.

Open to

Public

Host

Gaby Maimon

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Robert Houghtaling

Phone

(212) 327-8072

Sponsor

Robert Houghtaling
(212) 327-8072
rhoughtali@rockefeller.edu