Neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinás Will Deliver Breinin Lecture
at Emory University
Rodolfo R. Llinás, MD, PhD, the neuroscientist who pioneered important
concepts of neural circuitry and communication within the brain, will
deliver the annual Goodwin and Rose Helen Breinin Lecture in Basic Sciences
at Emory University. The lecture will take place Tuesday, Feb. 11 at
4:00 p.m. in the Whitehead Biomedical Research Building Auditorium,
located off Clifton Rd. on the Emory University campus. A reception
will immediately follow the lecture.
Dr. Llinás is chairman of
the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience at New York University
School of Medicine, where he has been the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy
Professor of Neuroscience since 1985. His research encompasses many
aspects of neuroscience from the study of synaptic communication
in the giant squid, where he first demonstrated the biophysical properties
of calcium currents, to the electrophysiology of the cerebellar neuronal
circuit, which he described for the first time in collaboration with
J.E. Eccles. Dr. Llinás was the first to describe calcium currents in
vertebrate neurons. Most of the results from his laboratory experiments
have been confirmed in humans using magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings,
which he has pioneered over the last 15 years.
Dr. Llinás received his medical
degree from the Javeriana University (Colombia) and his PhD from the
Australian National University. He trained postdoctoral research fellow
at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Department of Physiology at
the University of Minnesota. He has been a member of the National Academy
of Sciences (USA) since 1986, as well as the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and most recently
the French National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Llinás has contributed
more than 500 publications to brain research, has been awarded six honorary
degrees and is the recipient of numerous honors. He has served on the
Council of the National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Institute
and as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Roche Institute
and the Max-Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Munich. He currently chairs
the NASA/Neurolab Science Working Group. He was chief editor for the
journal Neuroscience during its formative years from 1974-1999.
The Breinin Lectureship is
named for Goodwin Breinin and Rose Helen Breinin.. Dr. Goodwin Breinin,
a 1943 graduate of Emory University School of Medicine, is chair of
ophthalmology at New York University School of Medicine and director
of the Kirby Institute of Ophthalmology. He was a pioneer in developing
new treatments for glaucoma and is a 1993 recipient of the Emory Medal
Emory University’s highest honor. Rose Helen Breinin attended Wellesley
College and completed her education at Barnard College. A political
science major, she worked with the New York City Housing Authority,
in public health community service and as a museum researcher and volunteer.
The Breinin Lecture is free
and open to the public. This year’s lecture is sponsored by the Department
of Pharmacology in the Emory University School of Medicine.
For more information, call
404-727-5983. |