Zeeshan Ozair

Presented by Ali H. Brivanlou

B.S., M.B., The Aga Khan University Medical College

A Reductionist Approach to Modeling Human Corticogenesis

Where does the mind come from? What is the origin of our brain?

Zeeshan Ozair came to me in 2009 via Abu-Dhabi and Pakistan, with a medical degree and after extensive training at Harvard Medical School. Already by then, he had developed a true passion for the way the brain works. He quickly realized that one of the best ways to answer this question is to understand how the brain is made. And because I share the same passion, he decided to join my lab.

Previous work performed on frogs had established that during early embryogenesis, every single cell of the embryo wants to become a brain cell, unless she is told otherwise by her neighbors. To what extent this was true in humans is what ignited Zeeshan’s drive during his graduate work. He demonstrated that the molecular basis of brain development has remained surprisingly unchanged between frogs and humans despite millions of years of evolutionary distance. Zeeshan then pushed his work forward and made several seminal discoveries on the development of the human neocortex. This is the part of the brain that makes us human, and encodes our precious cognitive functions such as language, dreams, and love.

His work opens for the first time a window into the molecular basis of our consciousness. I am lucky to have Zeeshan stay in the lab for a little longer as a postdoctoral fellow, before he moves on to complete his medical residency. There is something magical about humans wanting to understand their brain. When you think about it, this is really the brain trying to understand itself. It is as if the brain is reflecting its own image in a mirror. As Rumi, my favorite Persian poet, says: “Between the mirror and the mind there is a single difference: The mind conceals secrets, while the mirror does not.”

Zeeshan has always been and will continue to be a mirror in which I can find the reflection of myself.