Erin Schuman | |
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Known for | Local protein synthesis in dendrites |
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Erin Margaret Schuman, born May 15, 1963, in California, US, is a neurobiologist who studies neuronal synapses. She is currently a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. [1]
Erin Schuman attended the University of Southern California (USC), where she received her B.A. in Psychology (1985). She continued her education to obtain a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Princeton University (1990). She conducted postdoctoral research from 1990–1993 in Daniel V. Madison’s lab in the Molecular and Cellular Physiology Department at Stanford University. From there, Schuman was recruited to join the faculty in the Division of Biology at the California Institute of Technology where she moved up the ranks from Assistant to Full Professor. During this time, she was also appointed investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2009, she was recruited as the Director of Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, at which she holds her current position. [2]
The Schuman lab studies the properties of mRNAs and proteins (e.g. the transcriptomes and proteomes) distributed throughout the neuron. [3] Her research has examined how stability in neuronal processes can be brought about by local cell biological processes, like protein synthesis, allowing synapses to respond rapidly and appropriately to changing stimuli. The Schuman lab demonstrated the first functional role for local translation in neurons. In 1996, in the course of exploring how neurotrophins enhance synaptic transmission, Schuman together with graduate student Hyejin Kang made the discovery that local protein synthesis within dendrites is required for this form of synaptic plasticity. [4] She obtained direct proof that protein synthesis occurs in intact, isolated dendrites. [5] This, together with a few other key observations, gave birth to the field of local translation. Her team discovered, using next generation sequencing, over 2500 mRNAs localized to the neuropil. [6] In addition, Schuman and collaborators (Dave Tirrell, Caltech [7] and Daniela Dieterich, Magdeburg [8] ) has made invaluable technical contributions, such as the development of non-canonical amino acid metabolic labelling, click chemistry, and mutation of cell-biological enzymes (the BONCAT and FUNCAT techniques), enabling the labelling, purification, identification and visualization of newly synthesized proteins in neurons and other cells. [9] [10] [11] [12]
In addition to her research and professorship, Erin Schuman has been committed to promoting the professional advancement of women in the field of neuroscience. Schuman made it a condition of her recruitment to Max Planck that a new child care facility be built on campus. She also spearheaded an initiative outlining changes in recruitment practices aimed at doubling the percentage of female directors in the Max Planck Society's Biology & Medicine Section to 20% by 2020. In 2018, she received the Society for Neuroscience Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award in for her teaching, mentoring, and advocacy. [13]
Selected awards: [14]
Eric Richard Kandel is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard.
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Immediate early genes (IEGs) are genes which are activated transiently and rapidly in response to a wide variety of cellular stimuli. They represent a standing response mechanism that is activated at the transcription level in the first round of response to stimuli, before any new proteins are synthesized. IEGs are distinct from "late response" genes, which can only be activated later, following the synthesis of early response gene products. Thus IEGs have been called the "gateway to the genomic response". The term can describe viral regulatory proteins that are synthesized following viral infection of a host cell, or cellular proteins that are made immediately following stimulation of a resting cell by extracellular signals.
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Synaptic tagging, or the synaptic tagging hypothesis, has been proposed to explain how neural signaling at a particular synapse creates a target for subsequent plasticity-related product (PRP) trafficking essential for sustained LTP and LTD. Although the molecular identity of the tags remains unknown, it has been established that they form as a result of high or low frequency stimulation, interact with incoming PRPs, and have a limited lifespan.
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Tripartite synapse refers to the functional integration and physical proximity of:
Attila Losonczy is a Hungarian neuroscientist, Professor of Neuroscience at Columbia University Medical Center. Losonczy's main area of research is on the relationship between neural networks and behavior, specifically with regard to learning in the hippocampus.
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Rosemary C. Bagot is a Canadian neuroscientist who researches the mechanisms of altered brain function in depression. She is an assistant professor in behavioral neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her focus in behavioral neuroscience is on understanding the mechanisms of altered brain circuit function in depression. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, Bagot investigates why only some people who experience stress become depressed.
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HollisT. Cline is an American neuroscientist and the Director of the Dorris Neuroscience Center at the Scripps Research Institute in California. Her research focuses on the impact of sensory experience on brain development and plasticity.
Nadine Gogolla is a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany as well as an Associate Faculty of the Graduate School for Systemic Neuroscience. Gogolla investigates the neural circuits underlying emotion to understand how the brain integrates external cues, feeling states, and emotions to make calculated behavioral decisions. Gogolla is known for her discovery using machine learning and two-photon microscopy to classify mouse facial expressions into emotion-like categories and correlate these facial expressions with neural activity in the insular cortex.
Camilla Bellone is an Italian neuroscientist and assistant professor in the Department of Basic Neuroscience at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland. Bellone's laboratory explores the molecular mechanisms and neural circuits underlying social behavior and probes how defects at the molecular and circuit level give rise to psychiatric disease states such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Sonja Hofer is a German neuroscientist studying the neural basis of sensory perception and sensory-guided decision-making at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour. Her research focuses on how the brain processes visual information, how neural networks are shaped by experience and learning, and how they integrate visual signals with other information in order to interpret the outside world and guide behaviour. She received her undergraduate degree from the Technical University of Munich, her PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany, and completed a post doctorate at the University College London. After holding an Assistant Professorship at the Biozentrum University of Basel in Switzerland for five years, she now is a group leader and Professor at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour since 2018.
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