Seminar: Finding the right partner - how neurons form specific connections in the cerebral cortex

Join us for a seminar on how the brain builds itself, by Dr. Alan Gutman-Wei (Columbia University). 

Monday 11/11 @4:15pm for snacks, talk @4:30pm

Students, faculty, and staff are welcome. 

Speaker bio: Alan Gutman-Wei is a postdoctoral research scientist in the lab of Dr. Oliver Hobert at Columbia University. His research centers on the mechanisms by which neurons can form specific connections to their preferred partner cell types, generating precise organization of the nervous system that underlies behavior. He completed his undergraduate studies in biology at Stanford University, where he worked together with Dr. Ioana Marin in the lab of Dr. Carla Shatz to study activity-dependent plasticity during the development of the visual system. Alan then earned a PhD in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in the lab of Dr. Solange Brown, where he investigated the role of specific synapse formation during the development of the mammalian cerebral cortex as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. As a postdoc, he now studies how nervous system connectivity is reorganized during responses to environmental stress, using the roundworm C. elegans as a model system.