Discovering Molecular Machines within Neurons
The Richard M. Furlaud Distinguished Lecture
Event Details
- Type
- Friday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Gerald Rubin, Ph.D., head of biology, senior group leader, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Speaker bio(s)
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Dr. Gerald Rubin will discuss an experimental approach designed to discover evolutionarily conserved molecular machines that function inside neurons. In organisms like Drosophila, electron microscopy-based circuit mapping can reveal comprehensive information about direct connections between neurons, transcript profiling can reveal which genes are expressed in each cell type, and sophisticated tools allow precise perturbation and visualization of the activity of cells and circuits. In contrast, we know much less about the structure, function, and dynamics of individual proteins and protein complexes that generate and modify the properties of individual neurons. He will present his gorups's strategy for obtaining this information at scale.
Gerald Rubin is a Senior Group Leader and Head of Biology at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he served as founding director from 2003 to 2020. He obtained his BS at MIT in 1971, his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in 1974 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 1974-1976. He has held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School, Carnegie Institution of Science, and UC Berkeley where he is an emeritus professor. He is known for his studies of genetics, genomics, developmental biology, and neuroscience in Drosophila.
- Open to
- Tri-Institutional