The Academic Senate is pleased to announce the selection of Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD as recipient of the 60th Annual Faculty Research Lectureship in Basic Science for his highly original, creative, and rigorous research on adult neurogenesis and neuronal replacement. The lecture, titled “Chasing After Young Neurons,” will take place on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at 3:30 p.m. in Byers Auditorium, Genentech Hall, Mission Bay Campus.The event will be available via live-stream and a reception will follow.
An international leader in neural development, Dr. Alvarez-Buylla has used in vivo approaches to understand how young neurons are generated, how they migrate long distances, and how they differentiate. His work has identified and characterized neural stem cells, discovered new modes of neuronal migration, and developed novel approaches for neuronal transplantation. As one colleague describes his work, Dr. Alvarez-Buylla has an uncanny ability to identify important unsolved problems and then to formulate innovative methods to investigate them. His work has resulted in the publication of more than 150 peer-reviewed articles.
Dr. Alvarez-Buylla is active in research to understand the origin of adult neural stem cells and how they are maintained, to develop methods to introduce new neurons into regions of the postnatal brain where they normally are not replaced, and determine the function of postnatal neuronal replacement. Many students and post-doctoral fellows have trained in his laboratory. He has extensive collaborations within UCSF to understand the mechanisms and function of postnatal neural replacement. One of these collaborations has led to the recent discovery of a large cohort of migrating young neurons in the anterior forebrain of infants. With this new discovery, Dr. Alvarez-Buylla’s lab has begun investigating how postnatal recruitment of nerve cells contributes to the normal development of the human brain and how defects in this migration may result in neurological disease.
Dr. Alvarez-Buylla is the Heather and Melanie Muss Professor of Neurological Surgery, UC San Francisco School of Medicine and serves as a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. He received his PhD from Rockefeller University. He joined the UCSF faculty in 2000.
The 60th Annual Faculty Research Lecture – Basic Science will be held in Byers Auditorium, Genentech Hall, Mission Bay Campus, on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at 3:30 p.m., and will be available to stream via simulcast. Refreshments will be provided. The lecture is open to the campus community and the general public.
Since 1957, this award has been bestowed on an individual member of the UCSF faculty who has made a distinguished record in basic science. Nominations are made by UCSF faculty, who consider scientific research contributions of their colleagues and submit nominations for this prestigious award to the Academic Senate Committee on Research. Each year, the Committee on Research selects the recipient of this award.
A list of the past recipients of the award can be viewed at the Academic Senate website.
