NeurogradNews
The University of Texas
Health Science Center at Houston
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Summer 2012
Directors’ Note
Welcome back to The Neurograd News! Since the
Summer 2011 newsletter we have had 8 new students
start in the program, 7 students defend their theses,
a student retreat at Camp Allen, and an outstanding
video produced by two of our students which placed
3rd in the 2011 Inaugural SfN Brain Awareness Video
Contest.
We are looking forward to the 2012-2013 GSBS
entering class from which 11 students are interested
in joining the neuroscience program. The Neurosci-
ence Student council is planning a recruitment picnic
Saturday, August 4th at Surfside Beach. We encourage
all alumni who are in the Houston area to join our faculty/students and their families in welcoming the new
students. Please visit neurograd.org (or our Facebook
page UTHealth Neuroscience Graduate Program) for
more details.
Thanks,
Andy and Jack
Scan the QR code to
visit our website!
(Left) 2011 Retreat guest
speaker and NGP alumnus Greg
Fuller and Brittany Parker.
(Right) Program directors,
students, and guests at
the Camp Allen retreat.
Neuroscience at the family dinner table
By Natalia Rozas de O’Laughlin
I always find my in-laws to be the hardest audience to
explain my research work to. And because I usually only
see them during big family dinner events (Thanksgiving,
Christmas, etc), I decided to call this column “Neuroscience
at the Family Dinner Table”. Through these interviews I
want to learn and share with you the key elements in a
conversation to successfully get non-scientists excited and
interested about what we do. At the end you will find actual comments from the interviewee’s family!
I met with Anuja Chandrasekar, a 3rd year student
working in Dr. Waxham’s laboratory to talk about her
work. Her research topic started as “role of neurogranin in
regulating calcium binding to calmodulin” but after our
conversation it ended up being “Diwali at the Post-Synaptic Density”. My goal is to be able to explain her work in
a way in which anyone can understand it and maybe give
you a conversation topic for your next family reunion.
Neuroscientists are still arguing about what aspects of the brain are responsible for storing memories. Some say memories are stored in different areas
of the brain, depending on the type of memory. Others
say memories are stored in networks formed by brain
cells, throughout the brain. Yet others say memories are
stored in the way neurons communicate, by changing
the rate at which they send signals to each other. And
finally, some think that the key to understanding how
memories are stored is in the molecules themselves
what they do and how they do it could be essential
to understand how our brain can store memories. The
right answer probably lies in between all these ideas,
but currently we are only able to study one or two at a
time. Anuja’s work focuses mainly on the last concept,
that proteins can store memories by the way they interact and behave after an experience.
(continued on page 2)
Neuroscience at the family dinner table (continued from page 1)
Anuja studies how brain cells, called neurons, communicate with each other. Neurons are similar to any
cell of the body since they have a nucleus, mitochondria,
endoplasmic reticulum and so on. Neurons are different from other cells of the body in that they can process
and transmit information very fast from one cell to the
other through what is called a synapse. A synapse is
composed of 3 main parts: the end of one neuron (presynaptic terminal), a space in between (synaptic cleft)
and the beginning of another neuron (post-synaptic
terminal). In both terminals there are many important
proteins necessary to make this communication efficient and reliable. For example there are proteins that
form channels for charged molecules to move in and
out. We also find proteins, called receptors, which can
identify a signal outside the cell and transmit this signal inside. They do this by marking other proteins that
will carry the message further in, sometimes all the way
to the nucleus. We can think of all these molecules as
the working force of the synapse, each one has a task to
do and many interact to accomplish the job.
The molecules and proteins that Anuja examines
work at what is called the Post-Synaptic Density
(PSD). Anuja explained to me that the PSD is a region
in the post-synaptic terminal that looks highly dense
under the electron-microscope. It acts as a specialized
“sort-of ” organelle that ensures necessary proteins,
such as channels and receptors, to be in close proximity to receive a signal. In particular, Anuja studies how
two molecules called neurogranin and calmodulin interact with each other to do their part in the big task
of making a memory a lasting one. Neurogranin’s job
is to bind Calmodulin and regulate its availability at
the PSD. Calmodulin is one of the key proteins capable of receiving the incoming signal (in the form of
calcium that rushes into the neuron through channels)
and translating it by changing its interaction patterns
with many other proteins that will continue to send
the signal down the cell body and eventually to another
neuron.
Because Anuja is originally from India, I pictured
her celebrating Diwali with her family and in-laws. It
was very interesting how our conversation turned out
to be in a pretend Diwali celebration where she would
be explaining her work to her brother’s mother in law.
See how Natalia helps Anuja explain her project to
her family in t he rest of Natalia’s article at the Neuroscience program website: neurograd.org.
Natalia is a 5th year student in the Neuroscience
Program. You can contact her at Natalia.S.Rozas@
uth.tmc.edu.
Alumni News
Shuzo Sugita
I earned my Ph.D in Neuroscience in 1994, following
my graduate work with
Drs. Jack Byrne and Doug
Baxter. I came to Jack’s lab
from Japan in 1989. Using
electrophysiological
and
pharmacological approaches,
I studied second messenger/
protein kinase pathways that
are involved in modulation
of potassium currents and
synaptic neurotransmission.
Jack and Doug were great
mentors and I really enjoyed working there together
with many other motivated graduate students and
postdoctoral fellows. After graduation, I moved to Dr.
Thomas Südhof ’s lab at HHMI/UT Southwestern
Medical Center in Dallas to study molecular mechanisms
2 | Neurograd News
underlying neurotransmitter release. Tom has been the
world leader in the field for more than twenty five years.
In his lab, I learned molecular biology, biochemistry
and cell culture. I must admit that I struggled at the
beginning to learn these new (to me) techniques, but
still enjoyed a lot solving many interesting problems
using these approaches. I primarily studied the
function of synaptotagmins, neuroexins and Munc18.
I moved to Toronto to start my own lab in 2001.
I am currently Associate Professor of Physiology at
University of Toronto and Senior Scientist at University
Health Network. I am primarily studying the structure/
function relationship of the complex interaction
between Munc18 and syntaxin in neurotransmitter
release. Why and how Munc18 is so essential for
exocytosis is one of the biggest mysteries in the secretion
field. I am currently working with three graduate
students and one postdoctoral fellow.
(Continued on next page)
Alumni News (continued)
Shuzo Sugita (continued)
Similar to US, scientists in Canada are also suffering
the difficulty in funding, but I hope that I can survive
this difficult time.
Outside of the lab, I got married with Kyoko in
1993 when I was a graduate student in Houston. Jack
gave us a clock as a marriage gift, partly because I often
overslept and came to the lab late. I still keep this clock.
Thanks to aging, however, I can now wake up earlier.
Kyoko and I enjoy life in Toronto, but still remember
very fun times in Houston which includes Rice University Village and the Houston Rockets. Thanks to
the Neuroscience Program for great experiences and
memories.
Sonja Blum
I completed the MD/PhD program at UT in 2006
in the laboratory of Pramod Dash. My PhD thesis was
titled “Cellular and molecular
mechanisms of hippocampus-dependent
long-term
memory”. I completed an
internal medicine internship
at Columbia University, followed by neurology residency
at the Neurological Institute
at Columbia University. Currently I am finishing a behavioral neurology fellowship
also at Columbia.
I have been working on memory and hippocampus-neocortical organization in normal aging. Also,
I have been exploring the relationship of silent brain
infarcts to memory performance in older individuals,
which was recently published in Neurology under the
title “Memory after stroke: Hippocampus and infarcts
both matter”. I will be joining the New York University
Neurology Department as an Assistant Professor, with
clinical focus in neurorehabilitation and developing a
line of research in cognitive rehabilitation.
James Bjork
James Bjork, Ph.D. is a Program Official in NIDA’s
Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral
Research (DCNBR). Dr. Bjork joined DCNBR after
completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory
of Clinical and Translational Studies of the NIAAA
intramural program. While at NIAAA, Dr. Bjork
conducted behavioral and neuroimaging research on
alcohol-dependent inpatients and in adolescents at risk
for addiction, with a focus on impulsivity and incentive
processing. Dr. Bjork has also conducted neuroimaging
research on normative developmental differences
between adolescents and adults in incentive-motivation
and risk processing. Prior to joining NIAAA, Dr.
Bjork conducted laboratory research on aggression and
impulsivity in conduct-disordered adolescents at the
Harris County Psychiatric Center (HCPC; Houston
TX), part of the UT-Houston Medical School
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
Dr. Bjork earned his Ph.D in Biomedical Sciences
at the UT-Houston Graduate School of Biomedical
Sciences (GSBS) in 1999. His dissertation adviser was
Dr. Donald Dougherty, who is now at UT-San Antonio
and was also mentored by F. Gerard “Gerry” Moeller of
the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
at UTHealth Houston.
Presently, Dr. Bjork develops and maintains a grant
portfolio centered on neuroimaging and impulsivity
in normal and addicted human brains, and also serves
in a consultative role regarding NIDA’s pediatric
neuroimaging portfolio. In addition, Dr. Bjork serves as
the Scientific Officer on the main Human Connectome
Project cooperative agreement with Dr. David Van
Essen (Washington University). Other programmatic
interests include psychopharmacology and traumatic
brain injury and drug abuse in military and other
populations. Dr. Bjork has authored dozens of peerreviewed papers on human impulsivity and aggression,
and is a frequent speaker about the motivational
neurocircuitry of addiction and the at-risk brain.
When not discussing the brain, Dr. Bjork moonlights
as a professional saxophonist in the Washington DC
metropolitan area.
New Neuroscience Program Faculty!
Robert Dantzer and Annemieke Kavelaars
have joined the Neuroscience Program
Faculty. Both are members of the
Department of Symptom Biology at MD
Anderson.
Neurograd News | 3
Alumni News (continued)
Jeannie Chin
It has been just over 10 years
since I obtained my PhD
from UT-Houston in the
summer of 2001. It all
started when I was a
graduate student in Jack
Byrne’s laboratory. It was
under Jack’s mentorship and
support that I developed my interests in understanding
the mechanisms underlying learning and memory, as
well as the mechanisms underlying disorders of learning
and memory such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
For my postdoctoral research, I joined the
laboratory of Lennart Mucke at the Gladstone
Institute of Neurological Disease and UCSF. Using
transgenic mouse models of AD, I studied the cellular
mechanisms by which AD-related factors like amyloid
beta (Ab) impair synaptic plasticity and lead to
memory and cognitive impairments. During my time
in Lennart’s lab, I realized that many pharmaceutical
companies were devoting a great deal of resources
to AD research in a race to be the first to develop a
disease-modifying therapy for this devastating disease.
Lured by the vast resources for AD-focused basic
research and drug discovery, I joined Wyeth Research
(now Pfizer) in Princeton NJ. In my role as Principal
Research Scientist, I led drug discovery programs as
well as basic research efforts focused on Alzheimer’s as
well as Parkinson’s disease. Although I certainly gained
valuable experience during my years in industry, I also
realized that progress in AD therapeutics is hampered
by a lack of mechanistic understanding of disease
pathogenesis, and that the only way that I could truly
pursue my research interests was to return to academia.
An extremely fortunate set of circumstances, timing,
and location allowed me to become an Assistant
Professor in the Farber Institute for Neurosciences and
the newly-established Department of Neuroscience
at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA about an 8 minute walk from my house! I started at
Jefferson in the summer of 2010, and I absolutely love
being back in academics. I consider myself fortunate
to have had the opportunity to work in industry, and
even more fortunate for the opportunity to return to
academia.
4 | Neurograd News
The focus of my lab is to understand the cellular
and network mechanisms underlying cognitive
impairments in AD. We utilize a multi-disciplinary
approach to link molecular/cellular alterations to
memory deficits in transgenic mouse models of AD.
We use video-recorded EEG to characterize patterns
of (aberrant) brain activity in individual mice and
correlate this activity with performance in behavioral
paradigms designed to test different aspects of memory
and cognitive function. Finally, we use biochemical,
molecular, and immunohistochemical techniques to
identify links between alterations in particular proteins
or pathways and dysfunction of neuronal circuits
and cognitive processes on a mouse-by-mouse basis.
This integrated approach allows us to investigate the
molecular basis of memory impairments observed in
AD, and to identify therapeutic entry points for the
treatment of this devastating neurodegenerative disease.
Over the last 10 years, my experiences have been
shaped by my time at UT. Jack was a great mentor
from whom I learned so much about what it is to “do”
science, and how important it is to pay attention to the
details - because it is often that spurious detail that turns
into a fascinating story. I am also thankful to the other
faculty members in the Department of Neurobiology
and Anatomy and to the Neuroscience Graduate
Program for fostering such a warm community that
made research fun, and taught me to appreciate that
doing something that you enjoy means that you never
have to work a day in your life.
Jeannie Chin and her husband, Javier Medina. Javier is
also a graduate of the UT Neuroscience Graduate Program,
and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Neuroscience Program Students
Joe Alcorn
Lane Lab
Ariana Andrei
Dragoi Lab
Sarah Baum
Beauchamp Lab
Brandon Brown
Bean Lab
Anuja Chandrasekar
Waxham Lab
Cathy Claussen
Dafny Lab
Christopher Conner
Brittany Coughlin
Byrne Lab
Deepna Devkar
Wright Lab
Nadeeka Dias
Lane Lab
Sarah Eagleman
Dragoi Lab
George Edwards
Soto Lab
Madeline Farley
Waxham Lab
Jonathan Flynn
Shouval Lab
Monica Gireud
Bean Lab
Julia Hill
Dash Lab
Zach Jones
Dafny Lab
Denisse Meza
Bean Lab
Curtis Neveu
Byrne Lab
Brittany Parker
Wei Zhang Lab
Stuart Red
Sereno Lab
Caleb Robinson
Dougherty Lab
Natalia Rozas De
O’Laughlin
Dash Lab
Neda Shahidi
Dragoi Lab
Tandon Lab
Not pictured:
Benedict Igwe
Dantzer/
Kavelaars Lab
Akanksha Singh
Gopalakrishnan Lab
Natalie
Sirisaengtaksin
Bean Lab
Heather Turner
Galko Lab
Alejandro Vila
O’Brien Lab
Yanran (Helen) Wang
O’Brien Lab
Chihan
Kadipasaoglu
Tandon Lab
Neurograd News | 5
Recent Student Awards
Joe Alcorn was awarded the 2012 Roberta M. And
Jean M. Worsham Endowed Scholarship.
awardee of the Dee S. and Patricia Osborne Endowed
Scholarship in Neuroscience
Sarah Baum is the recipient of the NRC Graduate
Student Outreach Award.
2nd place (tie): Jennifer
Dulin (Ray Grill’s lab,
left) with Dr. Jack Byrne
(center) and Michelle
Reith (Michael Gambello’s
lab, right).
Anuja Chandrasekar was recognized as a Student
Research Achievement Award winner at the Biophysical
Society’s 56th Annual Meeting in the “Intrinsically
Disordered Proteins” category.
Sarah Eagleman was awarded a Graduate Student
Travel Award by the Houston Area Chapter of the
Society of Neuroscience.
Madeline Farley was named the 2012 recipient of
Thomas F. Burks Scholarship for Academic Merit.
Bryan Hansen (pictured
on right with family)
was awarded the 2012
Presidents’
Research
Scholarship
provided
by the Presidents of
the University of Texas
Health Science Center and the University of Texas
MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Stuart Red was accepted into the NIMH Summer
Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience for 2012.
Natalie Sirisaengtaksin was the recipient of a poster
session award at the UT/MDACC Symposia on
Cancer Research 2011 in the category “Regulation and
Structure of HER Proteins”.
Anuja Chandrasekar, Stuart Red, and Christopher
Conner were selected to be a part of the UT
Grant Initiative in Theoretical and Computational
Neuroscience.
Brittany Coughlin and Stuart Red were named
recipients of the 2012 Zilkha Family Discovery
Fellowship in Bioengineering.
NRC Poster Session
1st place: Bryan Hansen (Valentin Dragoi’s lab)
6 | Neurograd News
Student Retreat Poster Session
1st place: Brittany
Parker (center)
2nd place: Natalie
Sirisaengtaksin (left)
3rd place: Natalia Rozas
De O’Laughlin (right)
Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 Dean’s
Research Scholarship
Awards. From left, Dr.
Andrew Bean, chair of
the Graduate Student
Education Committee,
Bryan Hansen,
Jennifer Dulin, Anu
Rambhadram, Rachel Reith, and Caitlin Elmore.
The Synaptic Plasticity video by graduate students
Natalia Rozas De O’Laughlin and Julia Hill has
won the People’s Choice Award after placing third
in the 2011 Inaugural Society for Neuroscience
Brain Awareness Video Contest. Their success was
celebrated at the Society’s annual Brain Awareness
Campaign event during Neuroscience 2011 (below).
Recent Student Publications
Claussen C and Dafny N (2012). Acute and chronic
methylphenidate modulates the neuronal activity of
the caudate nucleus recorded from freely behaving rats.
Brain Research Bull. 87(4-5):387-96
Claussen C, Chong S, and Dafny, N (2012). Selective bilateral lesion to Caudate Nucleus modulates the
acute and chronic methylphenidate effects. Pharmacol
Biochem Behav. 101(2):208-16.
Hansen BJ and Dragoi V (2011). Adaptation-induced
synchronization in laminar cortical circuits. Proc Natl
Acad Sci U S A 108:10720-10725.
Hansen BJ, Gutnisky DA, and Dragoi V (2011).
Adaptive population coding in visual cortical networks.
IEEE E-Health and Bioengineering.
Vila A, Satoh H, Rangel C, Mills SL, Hoshi H,
O’Brien J, Marshak DR, Macleish PR, Marshak DW
(2011). Histamine receptors of cones and horizontal
cells in old World monkey retinas. J Comp Neurol
520(3):528-543.
Recent Neuroscience Program Events
The Annual Neuroscience
Program Picnic was held on
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at the
Valhalla located on the Rice
University Campus. Program
students and faculty enjoyed a
night of karaoke, great food
and games!
Orientation for the Neuroscience Program was held
August 26, 2011. After tours of various labs in the
program, faculty and students welcomed incoming students at our annual reception.
On October 6-7, 2011 the Neuroscience Program
students and incoming students interested in
neuroscience gathered at Camp Allen for student
talks, a poster competition and special guest speakers.
Greg Fuller, alumnus of the Neuroscience Graduate
Program, spoke on “If You Want to Take the Full
Ride, You Have to Get All of Your Tickets Punched
and other lessons gleaned from 35 years in academics
by a 1970s-era UTGSBS Neuroscience Graduate
Student” and Kartik Venkatachalam, member of the
Neuroscience Program faculty, spoke on “Diminutive
Dipterans Dodge Disease”.
On February 7, 2012 the student council members
scheduled “Rapid fire talks” that included a five minute
presentation with one slide that told the audience
about their research.
Student invited speaker, James D. Lauderdale from
the University of Georgia, spoke on April 12, 2012.
The title of his talk was “A Controlled Comparison of
Evoked Seizure Activity in the Mature and Immature
Brains of Zebrafish”.
The Summer Recruitment Picnic is scheduled for
August 4th, 2012. Keep a look out for it on neurograd.
org!
Neurograd News | 7
NONPROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
HOUSTON, TX
PERMIT NO. 209
Neuroscience Graduate Program
6431 Fannin, MSB 7.046
Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy
Houston, Texas 77030
Congratulations, Neuroscience
Program Graduates!
Ph.D. Graduates
Proletta Datta
Jennifer Dulin
Caitlin Elmore
M.S. Graduates
Antonio Tito
Joshua Gowin
Bryan Hansen
Antony Passaro
Neuroscience Graduate Program
Co-Directors
Andrew Bean and Jack Waymire
Program Coordinator
Amanda Concha
Neuroscience Student Council Members
Deepna Devkar, Nadeeka Dias, Jon Flynn, Curtis
Neveu, Natalie Sirisaengtaksin, Heather Turner
UPCOMING EVENTS
Neuro Luau
Saturday, August 4th
Surfside Beach, TX
4:00 PM
Caitlin Elmore and her advisor,
Anthony Wright celebrating
her successful defense.
Ray Grill and Jen Dulin at
commencement this past
May.
Neuroscience Program Orientation
Thursday, August 23rd
MSB 7.046 (with program faculty lab tours)
Reception following