Frontiers in Neuroscience Seminar Series
PROGRAM FOR AUTUMN 2024
5 November, 16:00, Segerfalk lecture hall, BMC A10
Bart de Strooper, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and VIB Researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, and University College London, England
Lecture title: Role of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease
About the speaker:
Bart De Strooper is a professor of molecular medicine at the University of Leuven and University College London. He leads research groups at the VIB Centre for Brain and Disease research in Leuven, Belgium, and at the Crick Institute in London.
Bart De Strooper’s scientific work is focused on the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. His major finding is the identification of gamma-secretase and its role in the proteolysis of the amyloid precursor protein and in Notch signaling, for which he received the Brain Prize 2018 together with Hardy, Goedert and Haass. Recently he has reoriented his work to the understanding of the cellular phase of Alzheimer’s disease. His aim is to understand the mechanisms of resilience that make that some people survive into very old age with the biochemical signs of Alzheimer’s Disease but without the symptoms of dementia.
He received his M.D. in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1991 from KU Leuven. He did a postdoc in the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, in the laboratory of Carlos Dotti. Apart from the Brain Prize, Bart De Strooper received the Potamkin Award of the American Academy of Neurology in 2002, the 2003 Alois Alzheimer Award of the Deutscher Gesellschaft für Gerontopsychiatrie und psychotherapie, the Joseph Maisin Prize in 2005 for fundamental biomedical sciences and the 2008 Metlife Foundation Award for medical research among other prizes. He is Commander in the Order of Leopold (Belgian national honorary order), an elected EMBO member (European Molecular Biology Organisation) and an elected member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, UK.Lecture hosts: Professor Gunnar Gouras and Professor Oskar Hansson
28 November, 16:00, Segerfalk lecture hall, BMC, A10
Professor Thomas Perlmann, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
Title to be announced
Thomas Perlmann is Professor in Developmental Biology at the Karolinska Institute and secretary of the Karolinska Institute Nobel committee. Thomas´ research unravels signaling and transcriptional mechanisms governing the specification, differentiation, and maintenance of dopamine neurons. Research by his group has resulted in the identification of several transcription factors with key roles in these processes, some of which were also found to be altered in Parkinson´s disease. His findings have moreover led to the generation of new genetic models of Parkinson´s disease that have been instrumental to important translational research in our field. His current projects are focused on understanding both early specification events and maintenance of dopamine neurons in the adult brain, also addressing the response of these neurons during Parkinson´s like pathology and regenerative therapies.Lecture host: Angela Cenci Nilsson
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
per [dot] odin [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Per Odin) (chair), Angela [dot] Cenci_Nilsson [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Angela Cenci-Nilsson), Gunnar [dot] Gouras [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Gunnar Gouras), Oskar [dot] Hansson [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Oskar Hansson), tomas [dot] bjorklund [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Tomas Björklund), niklas [dot] mattsson-carlgren [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Niklas Mattsson-Carlgren), jacob [dot] vogel [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (Jacob Vogel)