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Friday Evening Lecture Series
07/31/09
Lillie Auditorium, 8:00 PM
"Good News About Autism"
Martin Raff, University College London; Ellison Medical Foundation Scientific Advisory Board -
Introduced by Gerald D. Fischbach M.D.
Lecture Abstract:
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are common. From being the least understood of the neuropsychiatric disorders, they are now arguably the best understood, largely through recent advances in identifying genes that predispose to these disorders and through studies of mouse models of ASDs. There is increasing evidence that, in many cases at least, the underlying problem is at synapses, where nerve cells make functional connections with one another. Remarkably, in several of the mouse models, correcting the problem in the adult brain with drugs or genetic manipulations reverses many of the behavioural and neurological abnormalities, providing hope for the development of therapies for ASDs. I will review some of these recent developments and discuss possible ways forward.
Martin Raff is a world-renowned researcher of immunology, cell biology, and developmental neurobiology, and Emeritus Professor in the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology at University College London. Dr. Raff received his B.Sc. and M.D. from McGill University. He then pursued residencies in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Raff completed his postdoctoral training in immunology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London from 1969 to 1971, after which he moved to University College London, where he became Professor of Biology in 1979 and Emeritus Professor in 2002. Dr. Raff is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of Academia Europaea, a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, past president of the British Society of Cell Biology, and a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He served as an adviser to the NAS in formulating its Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in 2005. Dr. Raff is a member of many Scientific Advisory Committees, including that of Autism Speaks and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, two of the nation's largest organizations dedicated to funding and facilitating autism research.
Dr. Gerald D. Fischbach will introduce Dr. Raff. Dr. Fischbach is Scientific Director of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and was formerly Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences at Columbia University and Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the NIH. Dr. Fischbach received his M.D. in from Cornell University Medical School and interned at the University of Washington Hospital in Seattle. He began his research career at the NIH and subsequently served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, first as Associate Professor of Pharmacology, and then as Professor. From 1981 to 1990, Dr. Fischbach was the Edison Professor of Neurobiology and Head of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine. In 1990, he returned to Harvard Medical School where he was the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology and Chairman of the Neurobiology Departments of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital until 1998. Dr. Fischbach is a past-President of the Society of Neuroscience and serves on several medical and scientific advisory boards. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Science, the Institute of Medicine, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a non-resident Fellow of the Salk Institute.
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