Seminars

Prior Distinguished Lecture Series

• HHMI Investigator
• Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics
• University of California, San Francisco

“From Protein Folding to Cognition: a Serendipitous Path of Discovery”

Dr. Walter’s seminal contributions to our molecular understanding of how cells control the quality of their proteins and organelles during stress is evidenced by his many honors and awards.

He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His Numerous awards include the 2009 Gairdner International Award, the 2014 Shaw Prize and the 2014 Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.

Marc Diamond, M.D.

• Director, Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases
• UT Southwestern Medical Center

“Tau Prions: Insights into initiation and diversity of neurodegenerative diseases”

Seminal work from Dr. Diamond’s laboratory revealed that tau, a key pathological player in many neurodegenerative diseases, adopts prion-like characteristics that help explain its pathological spread through the human brain. The primary focus of Dr. Diamond’s work is to understand how amyloid-forming proteins propagate a misfolded state between cells. Recent breakthroughs include the invention of a cell-based platform for detecting minute levels of amyloid seeds in biospecimens, and an immunotherapy-based approach that improves cognition in vivo. Dr. Diamond earned his MD from the University of California San Francisco and was the David Clayson Professor of Neurology at Washington University in St. Louis prior to his recruitment to UTSW.

February 24, 2015:
Thomas Carmichael, M.D., Ph.D.

• Department of Neurology
• Brain Research Institute, UCLA

“Neural Repair after Stroke”

Dr. Tom Carmichael is Professor and Co-director of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Center and a leader in the study of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neural repair following stroke. His work focuses on using endogenous or transplanted neural stem cells to promote remyelination and neuronal integration after stroke. Seminal findings include the identification of a neurovascular niche for neurogenesis, the role of neurotransmitters in the repair processes and how the aging brain responds to stroke. He has over 70 publications and book chapters and is currently the Associate Editor for Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.

His many honors include a Larry L. Holblom Foundation Distinguished Scholar and the recipient of the American Society of Neurorehabilitation Outstanding Clinician-Scientist Award. He is also the Director of the largest multi-site neural repair collaboration, the Adelson Program in Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair. Dr. Carmichael received his PhD and MD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, was Chief Resident of Neurology at Washington University, School of Medicine and an HHMI Post-Doctoral Fellow at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Dr. Sally Temple

• Scientific Director
• Neural Stem Cell Institute
• Rensselaer, New York

“Age-related Changes in the Neural Stem Cell Niche”

Dr. Temple Co-founded the Neural Stem Cell Institute in 2007, where she serves as the Scientific Director and leads a team of 30 scientists focused on using neural stem cells to develop effective clinical treatments for CNS damage from trauma, malignancy, stroke or neurodegenerative diseases. She previously discovered that the embryonic brain contained a rare stem-like cell, which led her to make pioneering discoveries on the mechanisms as to how neural stem cells alter their development over time to generate diverse progeny. Presently, her work is funded by multiple grants from NINDS, NIA and NEI as well as the Ellison Foundation where she has received the Senior Scholar Award. Dr. Temple has authored or co-authored over 70 articles in very prestigious journals and written 10 book chapters.

She is on the Editorial Boards of Neuron, Developmental Cell, Cell Stem Cell and PLOS Biology, and serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of the Genetics Policy Institute, and Board of Directors of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. Dr. Temple has received many prestigious honors and awards including the Jacob Javitz Merit Award from the NIH and a MacArthur Award in recognition of her contributions to neural stem cell developmental biology.

A native of York, England, Dr. Temple received her undergraduate training at Cambridge University, her Ph.D. at the University College in London and then moved to New York to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University. Thereafter, she became a faculty member at the University of Miami before transferring to Albany Medical School where she is currently Professor of Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience. Additionally, Dr. Temple has a faculty position as Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at SUNY Albany.