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Signal Transduction in the Brain: Transcript: Introducing Paul Greengard
Introduction by George Augustine:
My name is George Augustine and I am here to introduce tonight's Friday evening lecturer, Dr. Paul Greengard from the Rockefeller University. Paul is a great scientist and a great friend and it is a genuine honor to introduce him to you.
Paul studies signaling processes in the brain, with a special interest in synaptic transmission. As most of you probably know, the power of the brain resides in the very sophisticated abilities of nerve cells to communicate with each other. Paul's work has brought our appreciation of these synaptic communication processes to an unprecedented level of understanding. Because he has published more than 1,000 papers on this subject, it is impossible for my introduction to do justice to his interests or to his contributions. I expect that his talk with offer you an excellent overview of this work.
By way of introduction I think it is fair for me to say that Paul's main contribution has been to vastly expand our views of synaptic signaling. When Paul began his work, our view of synaptic transmission largely started and ended with the electrical signals that are generated at synapses. While these electrical signals are undeniably important, Paul's work has shown that a far more elaborate cascade of chemical signaling events occurs within nerve cells. These signaling processes allow very sophisticated chemical computations to occur within the nerve cells and these chemical computations help sculpt the electrical signals that are ultimately produced by the nerve cells.
Further, his work on the cascades of protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation events within neurons has helped establish that such biochemical processes are fundamentally important for signaling transduction in all kinds of cells. Paul's work has ushered in a new way of investigating the brain, specifically a novel focus on the molecular neurobiology of the brain. Insights arising from his work have illuminated a spectrum of questions from fundamental workings of synapses to the causes of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
Needless to say, Paul has had, and continues to have, a very illustrious academic career. He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins and did his post doctoral work in England and at the NIH. Before moving to Rockefeller in 1984, he spent a number of years on the faculty of Yale Medical School and has also served on the faculties of Albert Einstein and Vanderbilt Medical Schools. Paul has spent some time in industry working at the Geigi Research Labs in the 1960's and was even in the Navy Reserves during WWII, when he worked on developing microwave radar.
Paul's list of honors is very long and I would need the entire hour to simply recite this list. Some of the highlights include many distinguished lectureships including the Forbes Lectures here at the MBL in 1987. He has also served as an advisor to a number of important funding agencies including the NIH, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the McKnight Foundation and NASA, among many others. Paul has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences for almost as long as I have been working in science. Last December his enduring contributions to science were acknowledged by his receipt of a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. It is interesting to note that the money that he was awarded for the Nobel Prize was turned over by Paul to create a new prize, specifically to honor distinguished women in biomedical research.
Paul's involvement with the MBL goes back to 1950s when he was a student in the embryology course and then spent the next summer working in Steve Kuffler's lab here. Since that time he has collaborated with a number of MBL investigators including Rodolfo Llinas in the 1980s, and with my lab during the past two years. So without further ado I would like to thank Paul for coming back to the MBL this summer to tell us about his seminar, the title of which is "Signal Transduction in the Brain". Thank you, Paul.
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