Faculty
Alfonso Araque
Dept of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Alfonso Araque is Research Professor at the Cajal Institute in Madrid, Spain. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1993 in Biological Sciences at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He did his postdoctoral research with Dr Phil Haydon at the Iowa State University, Ames, USA, from 1996 to 1999, studying astrocyte-neuron communication in cultured cells. He established his independent laboratory in 2001 at the Cajal Institute, where he is studying the properties and mechanisms of the reciprocal communication between neurons and astrocytes. He is Coordinator of the Biomedicne area of the National Agency for Evaluation and Prospective in Spain, Vice-President of the Spanish Society for Neuroscience and Editorial board member of Cell Calcium, Frontiers in Neuroenergetics. His major contributions include: the first demonstration of astrocyte-induced slow inward currents (SIC) mediated by calcium and SNARE-protein dependent glutamate release from astrocytes; the ability of astrocytes to discriminate between the activity of different synapses and to integrate those inputs, which indicate that astrocytes show integrative properties for synaptic information processing; the existence of new forms of neuron-astrocyte signaling mediated by endocannabinoids; the ability of astrocytes to regulate synaptic transmitter release at single hippocamapal synapses; the existence of a form of long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic transmission induced by the temporal coincidence of astrocytic and postsynaptic signalling; the ability of endocannabinoids to potentiate synaptic trasnmission through stimulation of astrocytes; and the involvement of astrocytes in the cholinergic-induced LTP in vivo.
Etienne Audinat
Neurophysiologie et Nouvelles Microscopies
INSERM U1128, Université Paris Descartes
Paris, France
Dr Etienne Audinat is group leader in an Inserm (the equivalent of NIH) unit hosted by Paris Descartes University. He studied neurobiology and neurophysiology at Grenoble and Paris Universities and obtained a PhD in Neurosciences from Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris. After a postdoctoral training at the Brain Research Institute of Zürich with Beat Gähwiler, he was recruited as a permanent researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris in 1990. Appointed as a research director at the CNRS since 2001, he has been the general secretary of the French Society for Neurosciences between 2011 and 2013 and he currently chairs the scientific council of the French Foundation for Research on Epilepsy. Initially trained as an electrophysiologist, he developed with Bertrand Lambolez in the early 90's, the coupling of patch-clamp recordings and single-cell RT-PCR to study synaptic transmission and neuronal diversity. His current research focuses on the role of glial cells in the regulation of synaptic functions and neuronal excitability during postnatal development and in the epileptic brain. The work of his group showed that astrocytes can synchronize neuronal activity by releasing glutamate and GABA, that purinergic signaling in microglia contribute to the remodeling of the hippocampus in pathological conditions and that microglial cells regulate functional maturation of cortical synapses during postnatal development.
Paola Bezzi
Department of Fundamental Neurosciences,
University of Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland
Dr Paola Bezzi is group leader at the Department of Fundamental Neurosciences, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She received her BSc in Pharmacology and Metabolism from University of Pavia and PhD in Neuropharmacology from University of Milan. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. A. Volterra’s lab for several years where she discovered that astrocytes can modulate neuronal functions by releasing chemical transmitters such as glutamate and cytokines. For several years her work has been focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms governing astrocytic glutamate release in brain regions where neurotransmission is likewise mainly glutamatergic. She now intends to study astrocytes in other brain regions (in particular in monoaminergic pathways), to discover whether and eventually how they contribute to the regulation brain homeostasis, neuronal excitability and synaptic plasticity.
Giorgio Carmignoto
CNR Istituto di Neuroscienze
Padua, Italy
Dr Giorgio Carmignoto is group leader at the Institute of Neuroscience which belongs to the National Research Council (CNR), the main public research organization in Italy. He is also associated with the Department of Experimental Biomedical Science of the University of Padova. The central theme of his research is the specific signalling between neurons and astrocytes investigated by laser-scanning microscope living cell imaging and patch-clamp recording techniques. Among obtained results are the first evidence for the ability of astrocytes i) to be activated by neurotransmitter synaptic release in slice preparations ; ii) to work as principal mediators of neurovascular coupling; iii) to generate neuronal synchrony by acting on extrasynaptic NMDA receptors. His research is now focused on the role of astrocytes in epilepsy.
Min Cho
Nature Neuroscience, Senior Editor
New York, USA
Min Cho, Ph.D. is a senior editor of Nature Neuroscience where he manages the selection of original research manuscripts for publication. He received his doctorate degree in molecular biology and neuroscience from Princeton University where he investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying mammalian learning and memory processes. Using genetic engineering techniques in mice, he continued this work at Boston University before joining Nature Neuroscience in late 2007. Prior to his formal training, he coordinated a clinical and academic research program at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco on projects concerning genetic and molecular basis of cardiovascular diseases and lipid/cholesterol disorders. Prior to his non-neuroscience stint at UCSF, he received an undergraduate training in neuroscience from New York University, Center for Neural Science and received Bachelor of Science degree in 1997.
Elly Hol
Translational Neuroscience, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, UMC Utrecht
Utrecht, Netherlands
Elly Hol was trained as a medical biologist with a specialization in molecular neurobiology. After her Ph.D. in Utrecht, she obtained a Max-Planck Fellowship to work for 2 years at the Max-Planck-Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany. In 1997, she started as a post-doc at the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research in Amsterdam, where she acquired substantial funding, including a fellowship of the Netherlands Brain foundation. Between 2003 and 2013 she headed the group “Astrocyte Biology & Neurodegeneration” at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. She currently is professor of “Biology of Glia and Neural Stem Cells” at the University of Amsterdam (2011), and associate professor in Utrecht (2013). Elly Hol is a recipient of numerous research grants, including the prestigious NWO VICI-award. She is in the editorial board of Glia, chair of the COST-Action Nanonet, chair of the ‘Friends of the Neurofederation’, and chair of GliaNed.
The research of her group is focused on the role of glial cells in brain diseases. The overall aim is to elucidate the molecular and functional changes in glia that contribute to the pathogenesis of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Her work is particularly concerned with studying glial cells in human post-mortem brain tissue and in mouse models for brain diseases. She applies sophisticated immunological, molecular and cell biological techniques on whole brain tissue and on glia isolated from human and mouse brains.
Elly Hol’s work is published in leading journals such as Brain, Molecular Psychiatry, Science, and Stem Cells Translational Medicine. She is regularly invited as a speaker at dedicated research conferences and at events for a broader scientific audience. She enjoys to explain research to the general public.
Frank Kirchhoff
Dept of Molecular Physiology, Institute of Physiology
University of Saarland
Homburg, Germany
Frank Kirchhoff is Chair of the Department of Molecular Physiology at the University of Saarland in Homburg, Germany. He studied biochemistry at the University of Hannover, received his PhD degree in neurobiology from the University of Heidelberg and habilitated in biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin. After postdoctoral periods at the University of Heidelberg and the Max-Delbrück-Centrum for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, he started his research group ‘Glial Physiology and Imaging’ at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, Department of Neurogenetics in Göttingen in 2000. In 2009, he was appointed as full professor at the University of Saarland. He is Editorial Board Member of GLIA and Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy. His research addresses the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuron-glia interactions using transgenic mouse models and in vivo-imaging. He developed a series of transgenic mice with cell-type specific fluorescent protein or inducible cre DNA recombinase expression in various glial cells. These mice appeared as valuable tools to study the structural dynamics of glial cells and the function of glial transmitter receptors in vivo.
Giovanni Marsicano
Neurocentre Magendie - INSERM
Bordeaux, France
Dr. Giovanni Marsicano is a tenured researcher at Inserm. He leads the group “Endocannabinoids and Neuroadaptation” at the NeuroCentre Magendie, an INSERM and University of Bordeaux Research Center devoted to neuroscience. Dr. Marsicano is a Veterinary Medicine Doctor as formation. After the Veterinary diploma, he worked on research related to Embryonic Stem Cells from farm animals and to xenotransplantation models in Italy for 4 years. He then moved to the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich for a PhD student position, where he initiated the work on the role of type-1 cannabinoid receptors (CB1) and of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) in brain physiology, which since has been his main research interest. The subject of his PhD thesis was the generation of conditional mutants for CB1 and anatomical and functional studies on the mechanisms of action of the ECS. After PhD graduation in 2001, he made two post-doc periods in Germany and moved to Bordeaux in 2006 (recruited as senior scientist in 2007) to lead his independent research group. He is member of the SfN, the French Society of Neuroscience, the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) and of the International Society of Neurochemistry (ISN). By using conditional mutagenesis in mice and behavioral, biochemical and electrophysiological tools, his work contributed defining the role of CB1 in specific cell populations in learning and memory, food intake and energy balance, anxiety, stress-coping and others. Through a clear bottom-up scientific approach, these studies allowed exploring some general principles of brain functioning, such as the balance between excitation and inhibition, the interactions between the brain and the periphery, the importance of energy metabolism in brain functions and, more recently, the interaction glial-neurons. In 2012, by generating conditional mutant mice lacking CB1 receptors from GFAP-positive cells, he contributed to define the role of astroglial CB1 receptors in the working memory effects of cannabinoids and on their in vivo electrophysiological correlates. Since then, the role of astroglial CB1 receptors became one of the most important lines of research in his group.
Eric Newman
Department of Neuroscience
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Eric A. Newman, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, is an internationally recognized leader in the field of glial cell biology. He received his Bachelor’s and PhD degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did postdoctoral work at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, and was appointed to the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1990. Dr. Newman’s research focuses on glial cell functions and the regulation of blood flow in the central nervous system in health and disease. He has characterized signaling pathways mediating neurovascular coupling in the retina and has studied changes in neurovascular coupling associated with diabetic retinopathy and retinal ischemia. His findings have broad implications for brain function, suggesting that glial cells play an essential role in many key brain processes.
Aude Panatier
Neurocentre Magendie, Inserm U862
Bordeaux, France
Dr. Aude Panatier is a permanent CNRS researcher in the group of Dr. Stéphane Oliet at the Inserm Neurocentre Magendie in Bordeaux. She studied Cellular Biology and Physiology at the University of Bordeaux 2 (France). She carried out her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Dominique Poulain (Morphofunctional Neurobiology Laboratory, Bordeaux, France), under the supervision of Dr. Stéphane Oliet and obtained a PhD in Neurosciences and Pharmacology in 2006. Then, she joined the laboratory of Pr. Richard Robitaille (Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada) as an HFSP post-doctoral fellow to study the role of astrocytes at the single synapse level during basal synaptic transmission. In June 2011, she came back in France and started a collaboration with Pr. Valentin Nägerl to better understand the morphological interaction of the astrocytic process with the postsynaptic element of the glutamatergic synapse (spine), using super resolution microscopy, named STED (stimulated emission depletion) microscopy. Dr. Aude Panatier is a permanent CNRS researcher since October 2012, in the group of Dr. Stéphane Oliet. Her research focuses on the role of astrocytes in the regulation of synaptic transmission in normal and pathological conditions. She is using acute and organotypic hippocampal slices as experimental model.
Gertrudis Perea
Instituto Cajal, CSIC
Madrid, Spain
Dr Gertrudis Perea is group leader at the Department of Functional and System Neurobiology, Cajal Institute, Madrid (Spain). She carried out her doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Alfonso Araque (Cajal Institute) where she studied the properties of Tripartite Synapse, and obtained her PhD in Neuroscience in 2006. Perea trained as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Mriganka Sur at the Picower Institute of Learning and Memory (MIT, Boston, USA) from 2010-2013, studying astrocyte role in visual information coding in vivo. In 2014 she was appointed to the Cajal Institute as Ramón y Cajal research assistant and she started her laboratory in the Department of Functional and System Neurobiology. The aim of her group is to understand the properties and mechanisms that rule astrocyte-neuron signaling in physiological conditions and brain dysfunctions, with special attention to the inhibitory transmission and synaptic plasticity processes related with cognitive impairments.
Gian Michele Ratto
NEST - Scuola Normale Superiore
Pisa, Italy
Gian Michele Ratto graduated in Physics at the University of Genoa and received his post doctoral training in Berkeley (with Roger Tsien) and in Cambridge (with Peter McNaughton). After a lectureship at the University of California in Davis he became tenured scientist at the Institute of Neuroscience in Pisa. He moved to the Physics laboratory of Scuola Normale in 2008 where he heads the in vivo imaging laboratory. The lab is interested in the cellular mechanisms at the basis of synaptic plasticity in physiological and pathological conditions using two photon imaging, electrophysiology and targeted delivery of genetically encoded sensors as principal tools of the trade.
Richard Robitaille
Dép. de Physiologie Université de Montréal
Montréal, QC, Canada
Richard Robitaille is a Professor in the Département de physiologie at Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada. He is also a Chercheur-National of Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec. He received his Ph.D. in 1989 in Neurobiology at Université Laval with Dr Jacques P. Tremblay. He did his post-doctoral training with Dr Milton P. Charlton in the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto from 1989 to 1993. He then started his independent research activities in 1993 at Université de Montréal where he stayed since. He received number of national and international awards at all stages of his career. He is an associate editor at European Journal of Neuroscience and an editorial board member of Neuron-Glia Biology. His research focuses on the role of glial cells in the regulation of synaptic functions in normal as well as in pathological conditions. He uses mammalian neuromuscular junctions and acute brain slices as experimental models. He addresses the role of glial cells in the regulation of basal synaptic transmission and the regulation of synaptic plasticity. He also studies the contribution of glial cells in the outcome of synaptic competition and during aging.
Tobias Stork
Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Worcester, MA, USA
Tobias Stork has received his doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Christian Klämbt at the University of Münster, Germany focusing his work on different aspects of glial development and function in Drosophila. He analyzed the adhesive interactions governing the proper ensheathment of commissural axons by midline glia as well as the organization und function of the glial blood brain barrier in the fly. In 2007 he joined the lab of Marc Freeman for his postdoctoral studies where he continued to use Drosophila as a model organism to understand basic aspects of glial biology. In particular he characterized a glial subtype in the fly that shows strong similarities to mammalian protoplasmic astrocytes: Fly astrocytes show a highly ramified morphology in synaptic regions of the fly where they are crucial for proper removal of the neurotransmitters glutamate and GABA. He found that the infiltration of synaptic areas by astrocyte processes is governed by FGF signaling between neurons and astrocytes. Stork continues to investigate astrocyte development and function in the nervous system in the lab of Marc Freeman as a senior scientist.
Permanent Advisory Board
Eleonora Aronica
Dep. (Neuro) Pathology Academisch Medisch Centrum
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Vincenzo Crunelli
School of Biosciences - Cardiff University
Cardiff, United Kingdom
Jochen Deitmer
FB Biologie, Universitaet Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern, Germany
Tommaso Fellin
Dept of Neuroscience and Brain Technologies
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Genoa, Italy
Douglas Fields
Nervous System Development & Plasticity Section
National Institutes of Health, NICHD
Bethesda, MD, USA
Christian Giaume
INSERM U840 - Collège de France
Paris, France
Philip Haydon
Dept Neuroscience -Tufts University
Boston, MA, USA
Hajime Hirase
RIKEN Brain Science Institute
Saitama, Japan
Helmut Kettenmann
Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)
Berlin, Germany
Baljit Khakh
Brain research Institute - UCLA
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Frank Kirchhoff
Dept of Molecular Physiology, Institute of Physiology
University of Saarland
Homburg, Germany
Pierre Magistretti
Brain Mind Institute, EPFL
Lausanne, Switzerland
Ken McCarthy
Department of Pharmacology
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Eric Newman
Department of Neuroscience
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Stéphane Oliet
Neurocentre Magendie - INSERM
Bordeaux, France
Vladimir Parpura
UAB Department of Neurobiology
Birmingham, AL, USA
Frank Pfrieger
Inst Cell Integr Neurosci (INCI)
University of Strasbourg
Strasbourg, France
Dmitri Rusakov
UCL Institute of Neurology
University College London
London, United Kingdom
Christian Steinhäuser
Institute of Cellular Neurosciences
University of Bonn Medical School
Bonn, Germany
Alexander Verkhratsky
Faculty of Life Sciences
The University of Manchester
Manchester, United Kingdom
Annamaria Vezzani
Department of Neuroscience
Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
Milan, Italy
Andrea Volterra
Dép. Biologie Cellulaire et de Morphologie
Université de Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland
Robert Zorec
Molecular Cell Physiology & Cell Engineering
University of Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia
