Speakers Profile Torsten Nils Wiesel was born on June 3, 1924, in Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Anna-Lisa Bentzer Wiesel and Fritz S. Wiesel, the chief psychiatrist at the Beckomberga Mental Hospital in Stockholm. Wiesel entered medical school at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 1941 and studied neurophysiology and psychiatry. In 1954, he received his medical degree, becoming an instructor at the institute as well as an assistant in the Department of Child Psychiatry at Karolinska Hospital. Wiesel then came to the United States in 1955 to do postdoctoral work at the Wilmer Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At Johns Hopkins, Wiesel worked under Stephen Kuffler, whose exhaustive work had proved that the vision of mammals is distinctly different from that of non- mammals. Wiesel became interested in the idea that the critical level of visual perception must take place in the brain of mammals. In 1958, Wiesel setoff with David Hubel on the research that would result in a new theory of visual perception. Wiesel and Hubel studied the striate or visual cortex which is located at the back of the brain. They discovered which cells in the cortex responded to which pattern or level of light. They also conducted experiments to map the striate cortex by injecting the eyes of experimental animals with radio actively labeled amino acid. These amino acids would be taken up by the cell bodies of the retina and transported to cells in the visual cortex. In some cases, the visual cortexes were dissected in order to see, by the use of autoradiographs or X-ray like photos, where the labeled amino acids actually ended up. Such experiments, begun in 1959, used both cats and macaque monkeys. That same year Kuffler was appointed a professor at the Harvard University Medical School, and Wiesel and Hubel joined him there. Wiesel was appointed assistant professor of physiology, and became a full professor in 1964. The Wiesel-Hubel team soon began publishing the results of their experimental method, and it was clear that they had uncovered new complexities to the visual process. Within the visual cortex itself, Wiesel and Hubel made two important discoveries. First they showed that there is a hierarchy of types of cells in the cortex, ranking from simple to complex to hyper complex, depending on the information each is able to process. They termed the process of putting the millions of building blocks of visual information back together into a picture "convergence." Their second major discovery was a further organization of the cortical cells into roughly vertical divisions of two types: orientation columns and ocular dominance columns. Within these columns are simple, complex, and hyper complex cells working toward a progressive convergence of visualization. Until the time of Wiesel's and Hubel's work, it was assumed that all cells of the cerebral cortex were more or less uniform. Wiesel and Hubel showed that the visual cortex is constituted of a cell pattern, which appears to be designed specifically for vision. As a result of their discovery, current theory now posits that the rest of the cerebral cortex may follow this form-follows-function rule. Wiesel and Hubel researched another experimental model in which they used kittens to study the effect of various visual impairments on development. They discovered that if one eye were deprived of certain or all visual stimuli at three to five weeks of age, the central functioning of that eye would always be suppressed from cortical processing. Kittens, and by extension mammals in general, though born with a complete visual cortex, must still "learn" to see. Even if an early impairment is later corrected, the repaired eye will still remain functionally impaired as far as the visual cortex is concerned. The realization that there is a critical stage for visual development revolutionized the field of pediatric ophthalmology, calling for the earliest possible intervention in cases of strabismus, or crossed eyes, and congenital cataracts. By 1973 Wiesel succeeded Kuffler as chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard, and was named the Robert Winthrop Professor of Neurobiology in 1974. In 1981, Wiesel and Hubel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Sperry from Caltech. The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which administers the prize and where Wiesel began his professional career, praised Hubel and Wiesel for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system. Wiesel and Hubel continued their close working relationship until Wiesel left Harvard in 1984 to head the neurobiology lab at Rockefeller University where he continued his researches on vision. In 1992 he was named president of Rockefeller University. Andrew J. Greenshaw Professor of Psychiatry & Neuroscience & Associate Director, Neurochemical Research Unit University of Alberta Edmonton T6G 2R7 Canada E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 780-407-6938; Fax: 780-407-6672 Prof. Andrew Greenshaw is the Professor of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, Associate Director of the Neurochemical Research Unit, and Associate Vice- President of Research at the University of Alberta. His main research interests are in behavioural neuroscience, particularly in the area of functional analysis of neurotransmitter interactions. His laboratory focuses on the analysis of neural circuits underlying motivation and reward in experiments involving intracranial electrical self-stimulation and the measurement of classically conditioned place preferences to drugs. Effects of drugs on locomotor activity are also studied. Current projects focus on interactions between 5-HT, dopamine and excitatory amino acids in the mesocorticolimbic pathways of mammalian brain. His laboratory is part of the multi-investigator group of the Neurochemical Research Unit with expertise and research activities spanning a range of neuroscience techniques applied to biological psychiatry and neurological sciences. :: 1 :: Anil Gulati Associate Dean and Professor Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy 555 31st St., Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA Email: [email protected] Tel: (630) 971-6417; Fax: (630) 971-6097 Dr. Gulati is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Associate Dean for Research at the Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy. He is a United States Fulbright Scholar 2008-2009. He started his research career as a Demonstrator in Pharmacology at King George's Medical College, Lucknow, India and then became Scientist at Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow. He joined University of Illinois at Chicago in 1987 and is presently an adjunct Professor of Departments of Biopharmaceutical Sciences and Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago. He did his M.B.B.S. in 1977 and M.D. in 1982 from King George's Medical College, Lucknow, India. Subsequently, he became Diplomate American Board of Clinical Pharmacology (1992). He was awarded Ph.D. (Pharmacology) in 1996 by Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dr. Gulati is considered a world leader in the field of endothelin research and blood substitutes. He is the winner of many awards including the Ranbaxy Research Award 2007. He has been member of the International Advisory Board of World Endothelin and Blood Substitute Conferences. Dr. Gulati has more than 265 publications in prestigious peer reviewed journals with international circulation and more than 300 abstract presentations. He has guided the researches of more than 50 graduate students and research fellows. Most of his research programs have been funded by public organizations, NIH, pharmaceutical companies and not-for- profit organizations. He has been invited to present key lectures at numerous conferences and symposia in numerous countries. He has chaired many international symposiums, served as grant reviewer for various funding agencies and has served as either chair or member of several University Committees. Dr. Gulati has several inventions and 21 patent applications (four issued patents) and has founded three companies, EndogenX, Inc., Chicago Labs, Inc. and Oxygen Therapeutics, Inc. Few medication developed by Dr. Gulati are currently undergoing clinical trials in the United States and India. He has successfully executed several licensing agreements and has raised millions of dollars for research through grants and private investment. Further, Dr. Gulati serves on many pharmaceutical companies as a member of their advisory board, providing key information on current trends in the science and business of drug discovery. :: 2 :: Aryan Namboodiri Associate Professor Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Genetics, Neuroscience Program and Molecular and Cell Biology Program, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Building C-2116, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. Email Id: [email protected] Tel. / Fax numbers: 301-295-9357/301-295-3566 My research program is focused on the basic and preclinical aspects of N- acetylaspartate (NAA) including Canavan disease. I was primarily responsible for organizing the First International Symposium on this area of research at NIH in September 2004. Recently, I have expanded my research into developing newer neuroprotective strategies for traumatic brain injury based on altered NAA metabolism in the brain. More recently, we have cloned the gene for the biosynthetic enzyme of NAA and a mouse line in which this gene is knocked out is under development. I have more than 100 publication including peer reviewed