Sensory Biology: Understanding Our Windows to the World

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Sensory Biology: Understanding Our Windows to the World

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=54391

WHAT: The Center for Sensory Biology Inaugural Symposium

WHO: Nine experts in sensory biology present their current findings

to an audience of more than 200 key scientists

WHEN: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday, Nov. 13, 2006

WHERE: Vernon B. Mountcastle Auditorium

s Hopkins School of Medicine

725 N. Wolfe St.

Baltimore, MD 21205

Animals - including people - have over eons developed intricately

specialized systems to sense, process and interpret information from

the outside world. Research to uncover the molecular players in

these systems has revealed that very similar chemistry and biology

are involved in seemingly very different sensory activities such as

vision, hearing and touch, pain and temperature sensation.

The newly established Center for Sensory Biology in the Institute of

Basic Biomedical Sciences at s Hopkins is believed the first and

only of its kind to combine laboratories studying all the senses in

one location.

To kick off this new multidisciplinary collaboration, the Center

will present investigators' latest findings from research at Hopkins

and elsewhere at an all-day symposium.

Find out how the retina detects light; how hair cells of the inner

ear sense sound; how cells and molecules link up to build the sense

of smell; why pain is mainly in the brain and how our skin feels

temperature changes.

" Light detection in the retina "

King-Wai Yau, Ph.D.,

Professor of Neuroscience

s Hopkins School of Medicine

" Biochemical mechanisms of visual pigment regeneration in the

vertebrate retina "

H. , M.D.,

Professor of Ophthalmology and Biological Chemistry

Jules Stein Eye Institute,

UCLA School of Medicine

" High fidelity signaling in the inner ear: molecules of

mechanotransduction in hair cells "

G. Gillespie, Ph.D., Professor

Oregon Hearing Research Center and Vollum Institute,

Oregon Health & Science University

" Transmitter release at the hair cell afferent synapse: mechanisms

underlying high fidelity signaling in the inner ear "

beth Glowatzki, Ph.D.,

Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery

s Hopkins School of Medicine

" Molecular biology of pheromone detection: from genes to circuits

and behaviors "

Dulac, Ph.D.,

Medical Institute Investigator,

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology,

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Harvard University

" Building smell: mechanisms for generating the cells, apparatus and

wiring of olfaction "

Randall , Ph.D.,

Co-director,

Center for Sensory Biology,

Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics

s Hopkins School of Medicine

" Pain insensitivity - nature or nurture? "

Clifford Woolf, M.D., Ph.D.,

Kitz Chair of Anesthesia Research,

Director,

Neural Plasticity Research Group,

Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

" Heat-gated ion channels and temperature sensation by neuronal and

nonneuronal cells "

Mike Caterina, M.D., Ph.D.,

Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry

s Hopkins School of Medicine

" TRP channels: mediators of sensory signaling "

Craig Montell, Ph.D.,

Professor of Biological Chemistry

s Hopkins School of Medicine

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On the Web:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ibbs/research/sensorybiology/index.htm

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