Lu chen stanford neuroscience faculty

  • Lu chen bcg

    • Claude Desplan, DSc, PhD is a Silver Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at NYU and an Affiliate Professor at the CGSB at NYU in Abu Dhabi. Dr. Desplan was born in Algeria and was trained at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in St. Cloud, France. He received his DSc at INSERM in Paris in 1983 working with M.S. Moukhtar and M. Thomasset on calcium regulation. He joined Pat O’Farrell at UCSF as a postdoc where he demonstrated that the homeodomain, a conserved signature of many developmental genes, is a DNA binding motif. In 1987, he joined the Faculty of Rockefeller University as an HHMI Assistant/Associate Investigator to pursue structural studies of the homeodomain and the evolution of axis formation.

    In 1999, Dr. Desplan joined NYU where he investigates the generation of neural diversity using the Drosophila visual system. His team has described the molecular mechanisms that pattern the eye and showed how stochastic decisions contribute to the diversification of photoreceptors. It also investigates the development and function of the optic lobes where neuronal diversity is generated by spatio-temporal patterning of neuroblasts, a mechanism that also applies to cortical development in mammals. Recently, his lab has also provided a functional understanding of the neuronal and computational mechanisms underlying motion detection.

    His laboratory also uses ‘evo-devo’ approaches to understand the mechanisms by which sensory systems adapt to different ecological conditions, from flies to ants to butterflies.

    Dr. Desplan serves on multiple scientific advisory boards and committees for funding agencies. He is an elected member of the AAAS, of EMBO, the New York Academy of Sciences as well as the US National Academy of Sciences.

    Expertise
    Developmental Biology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Neuroscience
    Research focus
    development neurobiology
    evo-devo
    vision
    stochasticity in development
    rhodopsin
    aging and caste determination (ants)
    Experimental organism
    D. melano

    Lu Chen

    Professor of Neurosurgery and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

    Administrative Appointments

    • Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science (2016 - Present)

    • Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science (2011 - Present)

    • Professor, Department of Neurosurgery (2016 - Present)

    • Associate Professor, Stanford Institute of Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neuroscience (2011 - Present)

    Honors & Awards

    • NRSA Postdoc fellowship, NIH (2001)

    • Beckman Young Investigator Award, Beckman foundation (2003)

    • NARSAD Young Investigator Award, NARSAD (2005)

    • Packard Fellow in Science and Engineering, David and Lucile Packard Foundation (2005)

    • Keck Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research, W. M. Keck Foundation (2005)

    • MacArthur Fellowship, MacArthur Foundation (2005)

    Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

    • External Advisory Board member, Neuroscience and Brain Disease Research Center, China Medical University, Taiwan (2022 - Present)

    • Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award Selection Committee, Society for Neuroscience (2022 - Present)

    • Editorial Board, Current Opinion in Neurobiology (2019 - Present)

    • Senior Editor, eLife (2019 - Present)

    • Editorial Board, PLOS One (2018 - Present)

    • Editorial Board, Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience (2018 - Present)

    • Program Committee, Society for Neuroscience (2009 - 2012)

    • Associate Editor, The Journal of Neuroscience (2008 - 2013)

    • member, Society for Neuroscience (1993 - Present)

    Professional Education

    • PhD, University of Southern California, Neurobiology (1998)

    Current Research and Scholarly Interests

    The long-term goal of my research is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie synapse function during behavior in the developing and mature brain, and how synapse function is altered during mental retardation. In this broad research area, I am specificall

    Passion and dedication lead to Nobel in Medicine for Südhof

    Thomas Südhof was driving through the middle of Spain when he received the phone call notifying him that he had been awarded one of the most prestigious honors in his field, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

    “I didn’t expect it,” said Südhof, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford School of Medicine. “There are so many people who deserve a Nobel Prize. There’s no reason to suspect that you’re going to get it.”

    As unexpected as it was, Südhof’s wife Lu Chen already knew about the award —earlier that morning, she had been the first to hear the news from the committee.

    “I was dying to tell him myself, but cell phones display numbers. If he sees it’s my number, the surprise is already halfway gone,” said Chen, an associate professor of neurosurgery and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, also at the School of Medicine. “It’s a historical moment in his life, and no matter how much I’m tempted to [call him myself], I don’t have the right to deprive him of that moment.”

    Südhof received the award for his research on how synapses affect communication between neurons within the brain.

    “This [Nobel Prize] is about the work that we performed over two and a half decades to discover how a synapse speaks — how, in a synapse, neurotransmitters are released in response to a presynaptic action potential,” Südhof explained.

    Yet Südhof did not always know he wanted to go into science. He grew up the son of two physicians in Göttingen, Germany, and his father was also a professor of medicine.

    “I had no particular interest in science when I was a child or high school student,” Südhof said. “I started to study medicine after high school because I thought that would give me a lot of different possibilities…and because I liked the idea of potentially doing something useful.”

    As a medical student, Südhof became interested in science and began working in a lab. In 1983, he moved to

  • Lu chen, md

    • The long-term goal of our research is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie synapse function during behavior in the developing and mature brain, and how synapse function is altered during mental retardation. In this broad research area, we are specifically interested in the molecular underpinnings of activity-dependent regulation of synaptic strength, the role of postsynaptic protein translational regulation in plastic changes of synaptic activity, and the pathophysiology of synapses in autism spectrum disorders (e.g. Fragile X syndrome) that involves changes in postsynaptic protein translation and synaptic strength. Our lab uses a combinatory approach including mouse genetics, stem cell technology, molecular manipulations and biochemical analysis, as well as functional assessment at cellular and circuit levels using both electrophysiological and behavioral readouts.

    Awards and Achievements

    • MacArthur Fellowship ( 2005)
    • W. M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research ( 2005)