Mitochondria and Oxidative Stress in Neurodegenerative Disorders

Organizers

Gary E. Gibson, PhD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Burke Medical Research Institute
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Gary Gibson is a tenured professor of neuroscience at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and at Burke Medical Research Institute. Gibson is also a member of the graduate program in neuroscience at Cornell Medical College and teaches graduate students in that program.Gibson received his PhD in physiology with emphasis in biochemistry and neuroscience at Cornell University. He did his postdoctoral work at UCLA, where he became a faculty member. He then moved to Cornell University Medical College and Burke Medical Research Institute where he has been ever since. He also served as the associate director of the Dementia Research Service.

Gibson received the American Society for Neurochemistry award for outstanding young investigator. He has given lectures at many institutions and honorary lectures including the Deans hour at Cornell University Medical College, the NIH Director's Talk, and the Visek Lectureship at the University of Illinois. He has served on over 20 NIH review panels for reviewing grants. He regularly reviews grants for the Alzheimer Association and the American Federation for Aging Research. He is a member of numerous scientific societies including the American Society for Neurochemistry (past secretary, 2005–2006), the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Neurochemistry, the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, the American Institute of Nutrition, and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Rajiv R. Ratan, MD, PhD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Burke Medical Research Institute
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Rajiv Ratan is the director of the Burke/Cornell Medical Research Institute. He is also Burke Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Rehab Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Ratan received his MD and PhD in pharmacology from New York University where he was awarded the John Woodruff Simpson Fellowship in Medicine from Amherst College, was a National Institutes of Health-MSTP Fellow, and a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

After completing an internship in Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics, Ratan joined the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was a neurology resident and chief neurology resident in the Department of Neurology, and a fellow in rehabilitation in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and the Department of Neuroscience. At Johns Hopkins, he was awarded the Jay Slotkin Award for Excellence in Research and the Passano Foundation Clinician Scientist Award. From 1994 to 1996 Ratan was an assistant professor in the Departments of Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1996 Ratan joined the staff of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Hospital as an assistant professor and later an associate professor in the Department of Neurology.

Ratan is a member of the Board of Directors of both the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital and the Boston ALS Therapy Alliance. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Boston Cure Project. Ratan is on several editorial boards.

M. Flint Beal, MD

Weill Medical College of Cornell Univeristy
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M. Flint Beal is the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Director of the Neurology service at the New York Presbyterian Cornell Campus. Beal received his medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1976 and did his internship and first year residency in Medicine at New York–Cornell before completing his residency in Neurology at The Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the neurology faculty at Harvard in 1983. Beal was professor of neurology at the Harvard Medical School and chief of the neurochemistry laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to Cornell.

Beal is the author or coauthor of more than 300 scientific articles and more than 125 books, book chapters and reviews. He serves on the editorial boards of seven journals. Beal is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honorary Society and received the Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award of the American Neurologic Association. He has served on the Council of the American Neurologic Association and on the Science Advisory Committees of the Hereditary Disease Foundation, Huntington's Disease Society of America, Parkinson's Disease Study Group, Parkinson's Disease Foundation, Bachman-Strauss Foundation, the ALS Association, and the American Health Assistance Foundation. Beal is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Keynote Speakers

Douglas Wallace, PhD

University of California, Irvine
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Douglas Wallace is the Donald Bren Professor of Molecular Medicine and the director for the Center for Molecular and Mitochondrial Medicine and Genetics at the University of California, Irvine. Wallace received his PhD in microbiology and human genetics from Yale University in 1975. In 1976 he became an assistant professor of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He left Stanford in 1983 to join the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta, where he was the director for the Center for Molecular Medicine. In 2002 he left Emory University and joined the University of California, Irvine. He was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

Wallace has been a pioneer in the study of human mitochondrial genetics and the role of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in human evolution and disease. Together with his colleagues, he defined the basic principles of human mitochondrial genetics, and then surveyed human mtDNA variation from around the world, permitting the reconstruction of ancient human origins and migrations. Concurrently, Wallace and his colleagues investigated the role of mtDNA variation in human disease, leading to the discovery of the first inherited mtDNA disease mutation and the demonstration of the importance of mtDNA variation in aging and degenerative diseases.

Doug M. Turnbull, MD, PhD

Newcastle University
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Doug Turnbull is professor of neurology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Turnbull is a clinical neurologist with a specific interest in mitochondrial genetics. His main research involves the clinical aspects, diagnosis and management of mitochondrial DNA disease, as well as trying to understand the involvement of the mitochondrial genome in ageing and cancer.

Speakers

Conrad C. Alano, PhD

University of California at San Francisco
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Maria Ankarcrona, PhD

Karolinska Institute, Huddinge, Sweden
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Joseph S. Beckman, PhD

Oregon State University
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Sarah B. Berman, MD, PhD

University of Pittsburgh
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Paolo Bernardi, MD

University of Padova, Italy
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John P. Blass, MD, PhD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
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Ella Bossy-Wetzel, PhD

University of Central Florida (UCF)
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Susan E. Browne, PhD

Merck Research Laboratories
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Roderick A. Capaldi, DPhil

MitoSciences, Inc.
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Juan C. Chavez, PhD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
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Christos Chinopoulos, MD, PhD

Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
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Valina L. Dawson, PhD

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
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Gerald Dienel, PhD

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
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Robert J. Ferrante, PhD

Boston University School of Medicine
Bedford VA Medical Center
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Gary Fiskum, PhD

University of Maryland School of Medicine
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J. Timothy Greenamyre, MD, PhD

University of Pittsburgh
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Claire Henchcliffe, MD, DPhil

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
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Johannes M. Herrmann, PhD

University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Jeffrey A. Johnson, PhD

University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Mariusz Karbowski, PhD

University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
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Michael T. Lin, MD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
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Dong Liu, MD, PhD

National Institute on Aging Intramural Research Program
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Carmen A. Mannella, PhD

Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health
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Lisa Mosconi, PhD

New York University School of Medicine
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Mike Murphy, PhD

Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom
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David G. Nicholls, PhD

Buck Institute for Age Research
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Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD

Mount Sinai School of Medicine
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Domenico Praticò, MD

University of Pennsylvania
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Serge Przedborski, MD, PhD

Columbia University
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Rosario Rizzuto, MD, PhD

University of Ferrara, Italy
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Herminia Diana Rosas, MD

Massachusetts General Hospital
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Richard C. Scarpulla, PhD

Northwestern University Medical School
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Bruce Spiegelman, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School
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Anatoly Starkov, PhD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
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Hazel H. Szeto, MD, PhD

Weill Medical College of Cornell University
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Andre Terzic, MD, PhD

Mayo Clinic
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Nicholas K. Tonks, PhD

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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Nicholas W. Wood, MB, ChB, PhD

UCL Institute of Neurology, United Kingdom
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Xiongwei Zhu, PhD

Case Western Reserve University
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Alan Dove

Alan Dove is a science writer and reporter for Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, and Bioscience Technology. He also teaches at the NYU School of Journalism, and blogs at http://dovdox.com.