Neuroscience People News

Maribel Rios Awarded $400,000 Klarman Familty Foundation Grant

Maribel Rios, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neuroscience was recently awarded a Klarman Family Foundation grant in Eating Disorders research. This two-year grant will provide $400,000 to support research work aiming to elucidate how deficient levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the brain contribute to the onset of eating disorders. Fewer than 10% of the applicants were granted this award. As part of her investigations, Dr. Rios will be collaborating with Dr. Emmanuel Pothos, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and a member of the Neuroscience graduate program faculty.

Dr. Michele Jacob & Lab Highlighted in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News

The work of Dr. Michele Jacob, Professor of Neuroscience, and her colleagues at TUSM has been highlighted in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News. Click here to see the news piece.

Michele's work provides novel insights into molecular mechanisms that direct the assembly of neuronal cholinergic synapses. Cholinergic synapses play a central role in cognitive and autonomic functions. Further, malfunction of cholinergic synapses has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Molecular mechanisms that direct the assembly of this synapse remain poorly defined, however. The Jacob lab has identified adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) protein as a key organizer of neuronal cholinergic synapses. Their new study (reported in the June 2008 issue of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience) shows that APC organizes a multi-protein postsynaptic complex that is essential for targeting nicotinic receptors to synapses in vivo (Rosenberg et al., 2008). This work defines a novel neural function for APC. The importance of APC’s neural role is underscored by the association of APC loss-of-function gene mutations with mental retardation and autism spectrum disorders.

Pamela Harvey Wins Charlton Award

Pamela Harvey, a Sackler Neuroscience student with Dr. Eric Frank, was a winner in this year's Charlton Poster Competition. Pam placed first in the basic science I category. Her poster described her research on nerve regeneration as related to treatments for spinal cord injury. We congratulate her on winning a Charlton award.

Center for Neuroscience Research Receives Additional Funding

The Tufts Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR) has just been awarded 5 additional years of funding through a P30 center grant from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The CNR application received a priority score of 133 and was funded on the first submission. The center grant will provide $500,000 annually in direct costs to the CNR to support personnel and equipment of the center’s core facilities: Imaging, Genomics, Electrophysiology and Behavior. The CNR is directed by Dr. Rob Jackson (Neuroscience) and supervised by a Faculty Steering Committee including Drs. Kathy Dunlap (Neuroscience), Michele Jacob (Neuroscience), Alan Kopin (Medicine) and Klaus Miczek (Psychology); it provides research services to all Tufts investigators. To foster collaborative interactions among neuroscientists at Tufts University and its affiliated hospitals, the CNR provides pilot funding for collaborative neuroscience projects, thanks to generous contributions from the Vice Provost’s Office and the medical school Dean.

For more information about the CNR, please contact the center administrator Ms. Tabby Pancharatnam (6-3624) or visit the website at: http://www.tufts.edu/sackler/neuroscience/CNR/index.html.

Drs. Jackson and Dunlap receive Russo Grant

Rob Jackson and Kathy Dunlap have been awarded a Russo Grant, established by the Russo Family Foundation Charitable Trust to support cutting-edge science at the medical school. They will work to understand how glia influence the behavior of neurons.

For more information please see the April issue of the Dean’s Letter for Tufts Medicine.

Stephen Moss, Ph.D. to join Tufts Neuroscience Department

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Stephen Moss has accepted an offer to join the Department of Neuroscience in 2008 as Professor and Associate Director of Corporate Alliances. Dr. Moss will join us from the University of Pennsylvania where he currently holds the position of Professor of Neuroscience. Steve has an international reputation for his studies on γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter in the vertebrate nervous system. GABA receptors are also critical drug targets for anticonvulsants, sedatives and anesthetics. His laboratory is interested in understanding how neurons regulate the accumulation of these critical inhibitory receptors on the neuronal surface in addition to their functional properties. Given that altered GABA_A receptor function plays critical roles in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders the results may lead to new insights and therapeutic strategies for such debilitating disorders as epilepsy, anxiety, schizophrenia, depression and substance abuse.

Click here for Dr. Moss's lab website at UPenn.

Phil Haydon to be Chair of Tufts Neuroscience Department

We are pleased to announce that Phil Haydon will be joining our Department as our new Chair. Phil comes to us from the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Neuroscience where he currently directs two NIH funded centers and is the Vice-Chair of Neuroscience. He has a strong background in studies of synaptic transmission, neuron-glial interactions and in the application of optical approaches to the study of nervous system function.

Members of Jackson Lab Stand Out at Cold Spring Harbor

Neuroscience faculty member Dr. Rob Jackson chaired the Behavior Session at the most recent Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Drosophila Neurobiology Meeting (Oct 3-7, 2007), an international meeting devoted to the genetic analysis of nervous system development and function. A postdoctoral fellow from the Jackson lab, Dr. Yanmei Huang, delivered a talk at the meeting on a circadianly regulated RNA-binding protein that was entitled: "LARK controls different circadian output pathways through post-transcriptional regulation of distinct RNA target molecules." Joowon Suh, a Sackler Neuroscience Program student in the Jackson lab received an honorable mention in the prestigious Elkins Award competition for her work on a glial protein known as Ebony and the role of nervous system glia in circadian output.

Pamela Harvey wins Women in Neurotrauma Research Award

Pam Harvey attended the 25th Annual National Neurotrauma Society Conference in Kansas City where she submitted an abstract entitled, FUNCTIONAL REGENERATION OF SENSORY AXONS INTO THE SPINAL CORD AFTER BLOCKADE OF MYELIN-ASSOCIATED INHIBITION IN A DORSAL ROOT CRUSH MODEL OF SPINAL CORD INJURY. This was judged to be among the top 16 student/post-doc abstracts at the symposium and she was asked to present a poster. After the presentation Pam won the Women in Neurotrauma Research (WINTR) Award for Outstanding Abstract/Poster in the competition.

Other Neuroscience Department News

Newly Renovated Shared Research Facilities in the Department of Neuroscience

The Tufts/NEMC Imaging Facility (TNIF) and the Tufts Expression Array Core (TEAC) have moved into newly renovated spaces on the second floor of the Stearns Building on the Health Sciences Campus. Both shared research facilities are components of the Center for Neuroscience Research (see http://www.tufts.edu/sackler/neuroscience/CNR).

A New CNR Funding Mechanism: the CNR Core Award

The new CNR Core Award is designed to encourage neuroscience investigators to utilize core services of the center. The program offers small awards to individual neuroscientists or groups of neuroscientists wishing to collect preliminary data for a new grant application. Applications use a format similar to the one employed for the annual CNR Pilot Awards; however, awards for the core program are limited to $3000 and the funds must be spent within CNR core facilities or in the Tufts Molecular Facility within a six-month period of time. Applications must indicate how the award will facilitate the collection of preliminary data for a new grant application. Interested neuroscientists may submit an application at any time, which will be reviewed by the CNR operations committee in an expedited manner. To submit a core award application, please follow the instructions at: http://www.tufts.edu/sackler/neuroscience/CNR/center.html.