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Molecular Cellular Sciences Seminar Series

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Molecular and Cellular Sciences Seminars

The Molecular and Cellular Sciences Seminar Series hosts speakers who are distinguished scientists from all biomedical fields, including several Nobel Laureates. All students and faculty in the SGPS participate in these activities. The MCS Seminars will be held on the second Wednesday of each month, between September and May.* Seminar receptions begin at 3:30 p.m. followed by seminars at 4:00 p.m. in the Centennial Room, RWCLC 2.068*. 

*Unless otherwise noted.


2024-2025 Series Dates

  • Wednesday, September 11, 2024
    "Epigenomic programming of brain plasticity and disease risk by ovarian hormones"
    Marija Kundakovic, PhD  - Fordham University
  • Wednesday, October 9, 2024
    No Seminar
  • Wednesday, November 13, 2024
    Seminar Title: TBD
    Seminar Speaker: TBD
  • Wednesday, December 11, 2024
    Seminar Title: Oxygen sensing by arterial chemoreceptors: Ion channels and Ca2+ signaling.
    Donghee Kim, PhD - Rosalind Franklin University
  • Wednesday, January 8, 2025
    Seminar Title: TBD
    Jennifer Gerton, PhD - University of Kansas, Stowars Institute for Medical Research
  • Wednesday, February 12, 2025
    Seminar Title: TBD
    Weihang (Valerie) Chai, PhD  - Rosalind Franklin University
  • Wednesday, March 12, 2025
    Seminar Title: TBD
    Charles Bourque, PhD  - McGill University
  • Wednesday, April 9, 2025
    Seminar Title: TBD
    Anna Plaas, PhD - Rush University
  • Wednesday, May 14, 2025
    Seminar Title: TBD
    Seminar Speaker: TBD

2023-2024 Series Dates

Wednesday, September 13, 2023
"Utilizing iPSC technologies to investigate disease mechanisms in ALS"
Evangelos Kiskinis, PhD - Northwestern University

Wednesday, October 11, 2023
"Social determinants and brain health in older adults"
Lisa Barnes, PhD, FGSA - Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center

Wednesday, November 15, 2023*
RESCHEDULED to April 10, 2024

Wednesday, December 13, 2023
No Seminar

Wednesday, January 10, 2024
"Engineering Neurogenesis for Brain Repair"
Daniel A. Peterson, PhD - Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, February 21, 2024*
"Neurobiology of suppressed social motivation during inflammation"
Dr. Amiel Rosenkranz - Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Wednesday, March 13, 2024
"Sex differences in the brain at the intersection of the nervous, immune and endocrine systems"
Margaret M. McCarthy, PhD - University of Maryland School of Medicine

Wednesday, April 10, 2024
"Monocyte derived APC, TNF superfamily ligands and signal 4 for T cell activation"
Dr. Tania Watts - University of Toronto

Wednesday, May 8, 2024
No Seminar


2022-2023 Series Dates

Wednesday, September 14, 2022
"Social synchronization of fear in mice"
Alexei Morozov, PhD - Virginia Tech

Wednesday, October 12, 2022
"Neural circuitry of social bonding, social loss and empathy: Implications for autism"
Larry Young, PhD - Emory University

Wednesday, November 9, 2022
"Making New Neurons to Treat Neurodegenerative Diseases"
Xiang-Dong Fu, PhD - University of California - San Diego

Wednesday, December 14, 2022
No Seminar

Wednesday, January 11, 2023
"CRISPR for cure of HIV disease"
Kamel Khalili, PhD - Temple University

Wednesday, February 8, 2023
"Role of immune factors in uterine endometrium"
Svetlana Dambaeva, MD/PhD - Rosalind Franklin University

TUESDAY, March 7, 2023
"New genomic technologies to deconstruct and control cell identity"
Samantha A Morris, PhD - Washington University

Wednesday, April 12, 2023
“Antisense Modulation of RNA Splicing for Rare-Disease Therapy"
Adrian R. Krainer, PhD - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Wednesday, May 10, 2023
No Seminar


2021-2022 Series Dates
Join a 2021-2022 seminar via Zoom

Wednesday, September 8, 2021
"Brain capillary angioplasticity in health and disease".
Dr. Joseph LaManna, Case Western Reserve University

Wednesday, October 13, 2021
"Perturbations Reveal that Degenerate Circuits Hide Cryptic Individual Variability "
Eve Marder, PhD, Brandeis University

Wednesday, November 10, 2021
"The histone locus body: cell cycle-regulated gene expression coordinated by a phase separated nuclear body"
Bob Duronio, PhD, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Wednesday, December 8, 2021
"Cardiovascular Disease Associated with SARS-CoV-2 and HIV Infections"
Xuebin Qin, MD, PhD, Tulane University

Wednesday, January 12, 2022
"Myocardial Protection during Resuscitation from Cardiac Arrest"
Raúl J. Gazmuri MD, PhD, FCCM, Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, February 9, 2022
"Functional precision medicine for the identification of novel druggable targets within and beyond the tumour margins"
Georgios Giamas, PhD, University of Sussex, UK

Wednesday, March 9, 2022
"Uterus transplant, changing the pregnancy environment"
Liza Johannesson, M.D., Ph.D., Baylor University

Wednesday, April 13, 2022
"Neuropeptidergic modulation of the BNST activity and fear behavior - a trio by oxytocin, vasopressin, and CRF"
Joanna Dabrowska, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Wednesday, May 11, 2022
"Making New Neurons to Treat Neurodegenerative Diseases."
Xiang-Dong Fu,, University of California, San Diege


2020-2021 Series Dates

Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Negative Regulation of Inflammation
Jae Jung, PhD, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH

Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Astrocytes, Victim or Perpetrator in HIV-associated Neurological Disorders?
Johnny J. He, PhD, Professor & Chair, Discipline of Microbiology & Immunology. Director, RFUMS Center for Cancer Biology, Immunology & Infection

Wednesday, November 11, 2020
A Rosalind Franklin MCS Centennial Speaker
Multiscale Mechanobiology of TGF-beta Signaling in the Skeleton

Tamara Alliston, PhD, University of California, San Francisco – San Francisco, CA

Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Regulation of inflammatory T cell function by TLR2
Joseph Reynolds, PhD, RFUMS Discipline of Microbiology & Immunology RFUMS, Center for Cancer Biology, Immunology and Infection

Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Switch Genes, Pathways and Potential Therapies for Neurodegeneration: How to Mine Vast Gene Expression Databases.
Judith Potashkin, PhD, RFUMS Discipline of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Center for Neurodegeneration and Therapeutics

Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Can you See a Thought? Neuronal Ensembles as Emergent Units of Cortical Function
Rafael Yuste, MD, PhD, Professor of Biological Sciences Co-Director Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, NYC

Wednesday, March 24, 2021 (3:00 PM CST)
A Rosalind Franklin MCS Centennial Speaker
Alternative RNA Splicing Defects in Cancer: Molecular and Therapeutic Insights From Model Systems

Olga Anczuków-Camarda, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine

 


2019-2020 Series Dates

Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Stem Cell Based Approaches to Age-related Neurodegenerative Disease
Dr. Sally Temple, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University at Albany School of Public Health. Dr. Temple is the Scientific Director, Principal Investigator, and Co-Founder of the Neural Stem Cell Institute, Rensselaer, New York.

Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Signaling from and to Orai calcium channels
Mohamed Trebak, PhD, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine

Wednesday, January 8, 2020
On the Road to Resilience: Neuropeptide Y, Neuroplasticity and Motherhood
Janice H. Urban, PhD, Professor and Chair of the Discipline of Physiology and Biophysics and Director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Stress Resilience and Psychiatric Disorders at the Chicago Medical School/Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Wednesday February 12, 2020
Social Influences on the Neural Circuits of Emotion.
Amiel Rosenkranz, PhD, Professor in the Department of Foundational Sciences and Humanities/Discipline of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and Director of the Brain Science Institute/Member of the Center for the Neurobiology of Stress Resilience and Psychiatric Disorders at the Chicago Medical School/Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - CANCELLED
Unraveling gut-microbiota brain interactions in neurological disorders
Mauro Costa-Mattioli, PhD, Professor at the Department of Neuroscience, and Director of the Memory and Brain Research Center (MBRC), at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas

MCS SEMINAR SERIES WAS CANCELLED FOR REMAINDER OF THE 2019-2020 SEASON

2018-2019 Series Dates

Wednesday October 18, 2018 - CANCELLED
Organ on Chip Combined with iPSC Technology to Model Neurological Disease
Dr. Clive Svendsen - Director of the Board of Governor Regenerative Medicine Institute and the Kerry and Simone Vickar Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Regenerative Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Modeling human enteroids to study innate epithelial immunity
Nicholas Zachos - Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Hopkins Conte Digestive Disease Basic and Translational Research Core Center and Director of the Integrated Physiology Core, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Mitochondria control physiology and disease: beyond ATP
Dr. Navdeep S. Chandel - David W. Cugell Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology, Department of Medicine and Cell/Molecular Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Treating Disease with Antisense Technology
Michelle Hastings - Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy and Director of the Center for Genetic Diseases at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Why in the world haven't we cured Alzheimer's disease by now? And what is being done about it?
Beth Stuzmann - Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease and Therapeutics at Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, March 13, 2019
NO SEMINAR

Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - RESCHEDULED TO DECEMBER 12, 2019
Signaling from and to Orai calcium channels
Dr. Mohamed Trebak - Professor, Departement of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Penn State Cancer Institute Cancer Institute, Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis

Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Mitochondrial Dynamics in Health and Disease
Gyorgy Hajnoczky - Director, MitoCare center for Mitochondrial Imaging Research and Diagnostics, Professor, Department of Pathology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Thomas Jefferson University


2017-2018 Series Dates

Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Rethinking sodium metabolism

Jens Marc Titze, MD - Vanderbilt University

Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Alzheimer’s disease pathology is determined by APOE genotype and sex: Evidence from a unique mouse model

Mary Jo LaDu, PhD - Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Illinois at Chicago

Wednesday, November 08, 2017
The fine line between anemia and rust

Caroline Enns - Oregon Health & Science University

Wednesday, December 13, 2017
NO SEMINAR

Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Structural and functional studies of multidrug transporters
Dr. Min Lu - Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Regulation of host lipid metabolism by hepatitis C virus

Dr. Gulam Waris - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, March 14, 2018 CANCELLED
Stem cell based approaches to age-related neurodegenerative disease
Dr. Sally Temple - Professor at the Albany Medical College and Scientific Director of the Neural Stem Cell Institute

Wednesday, April 11, 2018
The role of central and peripheral inflammation in age-related neurodegenerative disease

Malú G, Tansey, PhD - Emory University School of Medicine

Wednesday, May 09, 2018
Neuroinflammation as a therapeutic target of CNS disorders
Dr. Linda J. Van Eldik - Professor, Department of Neuroscience, University of Kentucky


2016-2017 Series Dates

Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Inflammasome activation in the pathogenesis of juvenile Batten disease

Tammy Kielian, PhD - Univ of Nebraska Med Center, Omaha, NE

Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Oncofertility: From bench to bedside to babies

Teresa Woodruff, PhD - Women’s Health Institute, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine

Wednesday, November 09, 2016
T cell migration and function during the anti-tumor response

Thorsten Mempel, MD, PhD - Mass General/Harvard Medical school MA

Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Aging and cognition: What is normal and what is not

Geoffrey G. Murphy, Ph.D. - Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute (MBNI), University of Michigan

Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Timing is everything when Cannabinoids meet your frontal lobe

Kuei Tseng, PhD - Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, February 08, 2017
Functional expression of connexin hemichannels and calcium-activated chloride channels in mouse lens fiber cells

Lisa Ebihara, PhD - Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Rosalind Franklin University

Wednesday, March 08, 2017
More than Velcro: Cadherin Signaling Goes Terrestrial

Kathleen Green, PhD - Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine

Wednesday, April 08, 2017
Injury and Arthritis: A Molecular Approach

Linda Sandell, PhD - Washington University

Wednesday, May 08, 2017
Environmental Effects on Immunity and Atopy/Asthma Risk: Lessons from Amish and Hutterite Farm Children

Anne I. Sperling, PhD - University of Chicago