MEDICAL CENTER REPORT
09/24/08
Three professors named to lead neuroscience programs
BY BRUCE GOLDMAN
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Bill Newsome |
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Leadership changes at three Stanford hubs of neuroscience research aim to extend a pattern, already well established at Stanford, of collaboration and interaction across disciplines and school boundaries.
Neurobiology professor Bill Newsome, PhD, has been named director of a newly launched entity called Bio-X NeuroVentures. Ben Barres, MD, PhD, professor of neurobiology, developmental biology and neurology and neurological sciences, has assumed the chair of the Department of Neurobiology, succeeding Newsome. And Gary Steinberg, MD, PhD, the Bernard and Ronni Lacroute-William Randolph Hearst Professor of Neurosurgery and the Neurosciences, now heads the Stanford Institute for Neuroinnovation and Translational Neurosciences, formerly known as the Neurosciences Institute at Stanford. Steinberg retains his role as chair of the Department of Neurosurgery.
Bio-X NeuroVentures, an outgrowth of Stanford's Bio-X program, was seeded by a gift of $500,000 from the Rosenberg Family Foundation, as well as with funds from President John Hennessy and other sources. Newsome said the impetus behind the new venture was a desire to apply the interdisciplinary dynamic of Bio-X to the neurosciences. "The whole Bio-X ethos is to break down walls between disciplines," he said.
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The institute's first assault on those walls, Newsome said, will take the form of an optogenetics laboratory, where investigators will combine molecular genetics, optics and electronics to excite or inhibit neural circuits by targeting them with different frequencies of light. The methodology is based on pioneering work by Karl Deisseroth, MD, assistant professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
Barres, in his new position as neurobiology chair, intends to continue his role in mentoring PhD students in translational neuroscience—applying insights in basic research to understanding and, perhaps treating, neurological disease. Barres will still direct an educational program he initiated, called the Master's of Science in Medicine program; it allows PhD students from departments throughout Stanford to spend a year and a half taking medical-school courses on a part-time basis to gain an understanding of physiological processes—and, perhaps, ideas for applying their own basic research to curing disease.
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Ben Barres |
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"Traditionally we teach PhD students about one thing in depth, and nothing else," said Barres. "But disease is, by its nature, interdisciplinary. You don't have a 'brain disease' that just affects the neurons and not the blood vessels or immune cells. You have to know about other tissues."
Steinberg, who succeeds Bill Mobley, the John E. Cahill Family Professor of Neurology, at the helm of the neuroscience institute, said the organization's new name is intended to reflect a translational, interdisciplinary focus. "We want to foster collaborations that will help us not only expand our knowledge of the fundamental biology of the nervous system but also translate this knowledge into improved therapy to help patients," he said. "To do that, we are taking advantage of the multiple talents across the university in neuroscience. We want to foster strong collaborations among about 150 basic scientists, clinical scientists and clinicians."
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Gary Steinberg |
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One such area that could promise direct clinical payoffs is spinal injury and repair, Steinberg said. "Spinal-cord injury may be one of the first places we can show restoration of function in patients with neurologic injury, because it's a simpler system in some ways than the brain," he said.
The institute is also kicking off new programs in neuroregeneration and repair of nervous tissue (for example by stem-cell transplantation), one of them focused on creating neuroprostheses—devices that convert electrical impulses from the brain into electronic chip outputs driving movements of robotic arms in paralyzed patients—and another studying neuroplasticity and synaptic function.
Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the medical school, said: "We're fortunate to have remarkable leaders in neuroscience at Stanford. With these new leaders and programs, I'm confident that our neuroscience community will achieve even greater things in the years ahead."
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