Past Lecturers

2024

Leslie B. Vosshall, PhD
Robin Chemers Neustein Professor
The Rockefeller University Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Unbreakable Attraction of Mosquitoes to Humans

2023

No Lecture

2022

Joseph G. Gleeson, MD
Rady Professor of Neurosciences and Pediatrics University of California San Diego
Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine
Gene-Environment Interactions and Precision Medicine in Pediatrics

2021

John Huguenard, PhD
Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine
Embryonic Inflammatory Insults and Resultant Disruption of Prefrontal Cortical Circuit Formation

2020

Laurie Garrett
Award-winning Science Writer and Author
COVID 19: The New Plague and the New Tomorrow

2019

Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD
Professor, The Rockefeller University
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Head of Laboratory, St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases
Senior Attending Physician, The Rockefeller University Hospital
Visiting Professor, Necker Hospital and School of Medicine, University Paris Descartes
Toward a Genetic Theory of Childhood Infectious Diseases

2018

Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD
Director, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology
Founding and Acting Director, Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany
The Transformative Genome Engineering CRISPR-Cas9 Technology: Lessons Learned from Bacteria

2017

Josep Dalmau, MD, PhD, FAAN
Research Professor
Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA)
Hospital Clinic-IDIBAPS, University of Barcelona
Adjunct Professor of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania
Antibody-Mediated Encephalitis: Symptoms and Mechanisms

2016

Mary E. Hatten, PhD
Frederick P. Rose Professor
Head, Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology
The Rockefeller University
Mechanisms of Cerebellar Development: Migration, Circuit Formation and Synaptic Plasticity

2015

Robert L. Macdonald, MD, PhD
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Genetic Epilepsies and GABAA Receptor Mutations

2014

Cori Bargmann, PhD
The Rockefeller University
Using Fixed Circuits to Generate Flexible Behaviors 

2013

Angela Vincent, FMedSci, FRS
University of Oxford
Autoimmune Encephalitis – How Wide is the Spectrum?

2012

Elizabeth Engle, MD, PhD
Harvard University
Human Disorders of Axon Growth and Guidance

2011

Thomas C. Südhof, MD
Stanford University
Neurotransmitter Release and Neurodegeneration – the SNARA Connection

2010

Kenneth L. Tyler, MD
University of Colorado
West Nile Virus and the Nervous System

2009

James O. McNamara, MD
Duke University
Neurotrophin Receptor, TrkB, and Epileptogenesis

2008

Susan Lindquist, PhD
MIT/Whitehead Institute
Protein Folding and Misfolding in Neurobiology

2007

Arnold R. Kriegstein, MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Neural Stem and Progenitor Cells in Cortical Development and Therapeutics

2006

Lawrence Steinman, MD
Stanford University
The Implications of the Surprisingly Confluent Inflammatory Portraits of Multiple Sclerosis, Tay Sachs Disease and Adrenoleukodystrophy

2005

Roger Tsien, PhD
University of California – San Diego
Building Molecules to Spy on Neurons and Tumors

2004

Douglas Turnbull, PhD
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Mitochondrial Encephalopathies

2003

Christopher A. Walsh, MD, PhD
Harvard Medical School
Human Brain Malformations: Patterning the Cerebral Cortex

2002

Huda Y. Zogbi, MD, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine
MeCP2 Function and Dysfunction: Clues to the Pathogenesis of Rett Syndrome and Related Disorders

2001

Dennis J. Selkoe, MD
Harvard Medical School
Presenilins, Notch and the Genesis and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

2000

Roderick Mackinnon, MD
Rockefeller University
Potassium Channels

1999

Michael V. Johnston, MD
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Selective Vulnerability in the Developing Brain

1998

Robert H. Brown, Jr., MD, DPhil
Harvard Medical School
The Molecular Pathogenesis of ALS and ALS-Dementia: Further Insights from Genetics

1997

Dennis W. Choi, MD, PhD
Washington University, St. Louis
Zinc and Ischemic Encephalopathy: Metal on the Brain?

1996

M. Flint Beal, MD
Harvard Medical School
Pathogenesis of Neurodegeneration: Is No No- Good?

1995

Paul W. Brown, MD
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Infectious Cerebral Amyloidosis: Phenotypes, Genotypes and Amyloid Deposition

1994

Richard S. J. Frackowiak, MD, FRCP
University Of London
Organisation and Reorganisation in the Human Brain Following Injury

1993

Hans Thoenen, MD
Max Planck Institute For Psychiatry – Munich
Towards a Comprehensive Understanding of the Trophic Support of Motorneurons: Physiological, Patho-Physiological and Therapeutic Implications

1992

Fred H. Gage, PhD
University Of California At San Diego
Grafting Genetically Modified Cells to the Brain

1991

Jack. G. Stevens, DVM, PhD
University of California at Los Angeles
Herpes Simplex Virus Genetic Expression During Establishment, Maintenance, and Reactivation from Latency

1990

Clarence Joseph Gibbs, Jr., PhD
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Mad Cow Disease and Spongiform Degeneration of the Brain

1989

Paul Jolicoeur, MD, PhD
University of Montreal and Mcgill University
Determinants of Pathogenicity of a Neurotropic Murine Retrovirus

1988

Hugh O'Neill Mcdevitt, MD
Stanford University School of Medicine
The Role of the Major Histocompatibility Complex in Immunity and Autoimmunity

1987

Malcolm A. Martin, MD
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
Molecular Biology of the AIDS Virus

1986

James F. Gusella, PhD
Harvard Medical School
Molecular Genetics of Huntington's Disease

1985

Stanley B. Prusiner, MD
University of California At San Francisco
Prions Causing Scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

1984

Robert G. Shulman, PhD
Yale University
High Resolution NMR Studies of Brain Metabolism In Vivo

1983

Bernard N. Fields, MD
Harvard Medical School
Molecular Mechanisms of Viral Pathogenesis

1982

Robert A. Fishman, MD
University of California at San Francisco
Pathophysiology and Biochemistry of Brain Edema

1981

Leon E. Rosenberg, MD
Yale University
Hyperammonemia as a Cause of Encephalopathy In Children with Inborn Errors of Metabolism

1980

Julius S. Youngner, ScD
University of Pittsburgh
Persistent Infection and the Evolution of Viruses

1979

Thomas C. Merigan, MD
Stanford University Medical Center
Human Interferon as a Therapeutic Agent

1978

Abner L. Notkins, MD
National Institute of Dental Health
Viral Tropism, Encephalitis, and Diabetes Mellitus in Animals and Humans

1977

Michael B. Oldstone, MD
Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation
Viral Persistence and Disease

1976

Richard T. Johnson, MD
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Selective Vulnerability of Neural Cells to Viral Infection

1975

Philip R. Dodge, MD
Washington University
Acute Encephalopathies of Childhood – An Historical Overview