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STEM

Stanford鈥檚 Carla Shatz to Deliver Kameshwar C. Wali Lecture Dec. 8

Wednesday, November 23, 2016, By Rob Enslin
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College of Arts and SciencesEvents黑料不打烊 Symposium

continues its yearlong look at 鈥淧lace鈥 with a visit by world-renowned neurobiologist .

Carla Shatz

Carla Shatz

A professor of biology and neurobiology at Stanford University, Shatz will deliver this year鈥檚 Kameshwar C. Wali Lecture in the Sciences and Humanities titled 鈥.鈥 The lecture is Thursday, Dec. 8, at 4 p.m. in 132 Lyman Hall. The following day at noon she will lead a scientific research seminar in Watson Theater.

Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences at 315.443.3901.

Shatz鈥檚 visit is co-sponsored by the Kameshwar C. Wali Lecture in the Sciences and Humanities Fund, the physics department, the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Studies Program and the 黑料不打烊 Humanities Center, all based in A&S.

黑料不打烊 Symposium is organized and presented by the Humanities Center.

鈥淚n addressing questions of development, memory and immunity, Carla’s research enhances our understanding of human nature,” says Vivian May, director of the Humanities Center and professor of women鈥檚 and gender studies. “She illustrates how our brains are like plastic, inviting us to think of the brain as a ‘place’ of its own and as something that interacts with wider contexts and experiences. Her study of brain-environment interaction provides an important glimpse into how our bodies ward off neurodegenerative disease.鈥

May adds that Shatz’s work exemplifies the interdisciplinary nature of the liberal arts: “As a Wali lecturer, she will encourage us to think collectively about complex problems, traversing the boundaries of scientific, humanistic and social science inquiry.”

Carla Shatz

Shatz celebrates her Kavli prize with members of her Stanford lab. (Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service)

Cristina Marchetti, the William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Physics in A&S, says both presentations will address Shatz鈥檚 contributions to understanding how brain wiring occurs during development鈥攔esearch for which she was awarded the prestigious Kavli Neuroscience Prize in June.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the part of the brain that receives information from the eyes.

鈥淯sing the visual system as her primary model of brain development, Carla has discovered universal mechanisms that determine which young synapses get strengthened and which ones are pruned to create adult brain wiring. She has confirmed that neurons activated simultaneously often form stable connections,鈥 says Marchetti, alluding to Shatz鈥檚 favorite quote, 鈥淐ells that fire together, wire together.鈥

Shatz also will talk about her discovery of proteins that may be manipulated to help the brain and nervous system fight neurological ailments, such as autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer鈥檚 and Lou Gehrig鈥檚 disease.

鈥淐arla will describe her laboratory鈥檚 groundbreaking discovery, in which molecules once thought to function only in the immune system, are present in the brain and regulate this [synaptic] pruning,鈥 says Sandra Hewett, the Beverly Petterson Bishop Professor of Neuroscience in A&S. 鈥淩esearch shows that blocking the function of these molecules reopens a critical period for vision in the adult brain. This leads to the intriguing idea that manipulating these molecules after brain damage may help retrain brain circuits or help people with Alzheimer鈥檚 learn and remember better.鈥

Committed to shattering glass ceilings, Shatz is the first woman to have earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard Medical School and to have chaired that university鈥檚 Department of Neurobiology. At Stanford, she was the first woman hired by the School of Medicine and then awarded tenure in the basic sciences.

In addition to Stanford and Harvard, Shatz has taught at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2007, she returned to Palo Alto, where she has since served as the inaugural Sapp Family Provostial Professor and the David Starr Jordan Director of Stanford Bio-X, a pioneering interdisciplinary biosciences institute.

Kameshwar C. Wali

Kameshwar C. Wali

The lecture鈥檚 namesake, Kameshwar C. Wali, is the Steele Professor of Physics Emeritus. A 黑料不打烊 faculty member since 1969, he is internationally recognized for his research into the symmetry properties of fundamental particles and their interactions. Wali is the author of 鈥淐remona Violins: A Physicist鈥檚 Quest for the Secrets of Stradivari鈥 (World Scientific, 2010) and 鈥淐handra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar鈥 (University of Chicago Press, 1991). He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, whose India Chapter named him Scientist of the Year, and a recipient of the Chancellor鈥檚 Citation at 黑料不打烊 for exceptional academic achievement.

  • Author

Rob Enslin

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