Current Lecture Season

All lectures will be in person in Lipsett Amphitheater, Building 10, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET (new time) with remote viewing at https://videocast.nih.gov.

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WALS 2024–2025 WALS Season season poster

Cryptic (Hidden) Changes that Result from Perturbations and Climate Change Shape Future Dynamics of Degenerate Neurons and Circuits (2024-2025 WALS season)

Eve Marder, Ph.D.
Brandeis University

Margaret Pittman Lecture

A fundamental problem in neuroscience is understanding how the properties of individual neurons and synapses contribute to neuronal circuit dynamics and behavior. In recent years we have done both computational and experimental studies that demonstrate that the same physiological output can arise from multiple, degenerate solutions, and that individual animals with similar behavior can nonetheless have quite different sets of underlying circuit parameters.

Biospecific Chemistry for Covalent Linking of Biomacromolecules

Lei Wang, Ph.D.
University of California, San Francisco

Noncovalent interactions among biomacromolecules are fundamental to biological processes. However, recent advances in biospecific chemistry have enabled the formation of covalent bonds between biomacromolecules both in vitro and in vivo. This has been accomplished by genetically encoding latent bioreactive amino acids into proteins. These amino acids selectively react with nearby natural groups through proximity-enabled bioreactivity, allowing for covalent targeting of biomacromolecules without altering the target.

Frugal Science: A Toolmaker's Approach for Tackling Problems in Global Health, Ecological Monitoring, and Science Education

Manu Prakash, Ph.D.
Stanford University

Around the world, access to healthcare is often limited because of cost barriers. In this lecture, we will cover the philosophy of ‘frugal science’ which explores building and designing low-cost solutions for global problems such as infectious disease diagnostics, ecological surveillance, and science education. Through the lens of engineering, we will explore how to build a resilient innovation ecosystem for developing a range of low-cost solutions and deploy them at scale for global access.

The Science of Connections: Bridging Chromatin Folding, Synaptic Plasticity, and Neurophysiology

Jennifer Phillips-Cremins, Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Department of Bioengineering

The Cremins Laboratory works at the spatial biology-technology interface to investigate the structure-function relationship of connections in the brain across the scales of chromatin, synapses, and circuits in normal neurophysiology and in neurological disorders. We have thus far focused in the nucleus on creating kilobase-resolution maps of higher-order folding of the chromatin fiber and understanding how classic epigenetic modifications work through long-range connections to govern genome function in neurodevelopment. We have developed and applied new molecular and computational

How Neuromorphic Computing Can Help Us Understand the Brain

James Bradley Aimone, Ph.D.
Sandia National Laboratories

An underappreciated challenge of understanding the health implications of neural dynamics is the wide range of temporal and spatial scales in the brain. Neurological and mental health disorders often manifest themselves over months and years, while most neuroscience research focuses on dynamics over shorter timescales. This is especially a challenge for computational approaches, in which neural simulations are often limited to several seconds due to compute costs, greatly limiting their use for understanding fundamental neuroscience and health. 

Genomic Surveillance and Characterization of Microbial Threats Facilitates Early Detection and Containment of Disease Outbreaks in West Africa

Christian Happi, Ph.D.
Redeemer's University Redemption City, Nigeria

Recent viral outbreaks in many areas of the World is an important reminder of the difficulties of predicting when and where the next outbreak will occur. These also highlight the need to greatly expand our ability to rapidly identify and stop these threats. The 2013-16 Ebola outbreak took many months to detect, and it expanded in part due to the lack of local diagnosis. Similarly, despite regular disease outbreaks by known agents in many places in the world, many more viruses (known and unknown) are cryptically circulating and undetected.

Heart of the Matter: Unraveling Cardiovascular Disease in Autoimmune Disorders

Mariana J. Kaplan, M.D.
NIAMS, NIH

Astute Clinician Lecture

Patients with systemic autoimmune diseases exhibit a significantly enhanced risk to develop premature heart attacks and strokes. The mechanisms implicated in this complication, as well as preventive and treatment strategies, have been incompletely characterized. This lecture will address the scope of the problem, the putative pathogenic pathways leading to premature vascular disease in autoimmunity and discuss potential therapeutic targets and diagnostic methods.

Learning Objectives: 

Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Glycinergic Neurotransmission​

Sudha Chakrapani, Ph.D.
Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine

DeWitt Stetten Jr. Lecture

Glycine Receptors (GlyRs) at the inhibitory synapses in the spinal cord and brainstem are key players in regulating motor and sensory signals. Differential expression of GlyR subtype governs their widely differing physiological functions, ranging from muscle tone and respiratory rhythm to pain perception. GlyR dysfunctions are associated with epilepsy, chronic pain, addiction, and autism. Targeted regulation of specific GlyR subtypes will require a detailed understanding of their structure, function, and pharmacology.

Mechanisms of Phage-Derived Protein Antibiotic

William M. (Bil) Clemons, Jr., Ph.D.
California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

NIH Director’s Lecture

As antimicrobial resistance continues to expand, new ideas are required to address the growing threat. Phages, viruses of bacteria, offer many lessons that can be leveraged as opportunities to combat bacteria. In this lecture, Prof. Clemons will describe how some phages have developed simple, protein-based mechanisms for breaking through the bacterial cell wall and killing their host. These protein antibiotics can work independent of the phage, yet for years their mechanisms have remained mysterious. The mechanisms for several of these will be revealed.

Structure-Based Vaccine Antigen Design

Jason McLellan, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Molecular Biology

Rolla E. Dyer Lecture

Structure-based vaccine design aims to exploit knowledge of an antigen's architecture to stabilize it in a vulnerable conformation and elicit protective antibodies against one or more epitopes. Viral fusion proteins are excellent targets for structure-based vaccine design because they fold into several distinct conformations required to promote viral entry and membrane fusion. During this talk, the general principles of structure-based vaccine design and their application to the development of vaccine antigens for licensed RSV and COVID-19 vaccines will be discussed.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 20, 2024