Teacher Program Seminar Series - 2018-2019

Whitehead Institute’s 2018-2019 Seminar Series for High School Teachers: Advances in Neurodegenerative Disease

Neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and epilepsy, are one of the leading causes of death and disability in the world today. Each year, nearly 6 million people worldwide die from these and other neurological disorders, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The emotional costs incurred by this high mortality, coupled with the billions of dollars spent annually on associated health care and resulting global economic burden, spotlight the urgent need for an improved understanding of the brain and the disease processes that can affect it.

One challenge impeding the study of neurodegenerative disease is the brain’s relative inaccessibility. Through the combination of technological advances and novel approaches to neuroscience, genetic, and genomic research, scientists are becoming better equipped to study the brain and to address fundamental questions about how the brain works—and why, all too often, it doesn’t.

Whitehead Institute’s 2018-2019 Seminar Series for High School Teachers, Advances in Neurodegenerative Disease, will explore how researchers are fostering ingenious approaches to studying brain development and disease, and its impact on the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of neurological disorders.   

---

KICK-OFF SESSION: MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2018

RNA AGGREGATION AND NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASE

Ankur Jain,  Member, Whitehead Institute
[presentation not available] 

---

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2018 

CREATING MODELS TO STUDY ZIKA AND OTHER NEURAL DISEASES IN VITRO

Alexsia Richards, Postdoctoral Associate, Lab of Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch
[presentation pdf, 2.5MB]

---

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2018

REDEFINING MICROGLIA STATES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE

Tim Hammond, Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Beth Stevens at Boston Children’s Hospital
[presentation not available] 

---

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2019

NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS

Hazel Sive, Member, Whitehead Institute
[presentation not available] 

---

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2019

IDENTIFYING SOMATIC MUTATIONS IN PATIENTS WITH FOCAL EPILEPSY AND THE DIFFERENT PATHWAYS INVOLVED THAT MIGHT ONE DAY INFLUENCE TREATMENT

Annapurna Poduri, Associate, Department of Neurology; Director, Epilepsy Genetics Program; and Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
[presentation not available] 

---

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2019

CANCELED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER

 

---

MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2019

IMAGING NEURAL FUNCTION, FROM MOLECULES TO BRAINS AND BACK AGAIN

Alan Jasanoff, Associate Investigator, McGovern Institute; Professor, Biological Engineering, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Nuclear Science and Engineering; and Director, Center for Neurobiological Engineering at MIT 
[presentation pdf, 8.5MB]

---

MONDAY, MAY 6, 2019

WHAT IF A PINCH OF BAKER’S YEAST COULD BE JUST THE RECIPE TO SOLVE THE MOST COMPLEX NEUROLOGICAL DISEASES?

Chee-Yen Chung, Associate Director, Discovery Biology, Yumanity Therapeutics  
[presentation not available] 

---

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2019