Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish Endowed Lectureship
Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) proudly announced the establishment of the Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish Endowed Lectureship in March 2018, recognizing MSM’s commitment to supporting neuroscience and to celebrate the contributions Peter and Marlene have made to advance education and scientific research at MSM.
The Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish Endowed Lectureship Series is a Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) event established to:
- Recognize and celebrate the contribution of basic science, particularly neuroscience, to Morehouse School of Medicine,
- Invigorate and inspire students and junior faculty, and
- Inform the general public about advances in biomedical science and its impact on health.
The lectureship was established in 2017, thanks to initial funding gifts from Dr. Zach Hall, Former Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, his wife Julie Ann Giacobassi and Dr. Torsten Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and President Emeritus of The Rockefeller University.
Honoring a Legacy
To honor the legacy of Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish and to ensure its continuation, Morehouse School of Medicine and its gracious donors have created an initial $200,000 endowment to support this high-profile lecture series bringing outstanding biomedical scientists to the MSM campus and surrounding community. You are invited to further support the Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish Endowed Lectureship, by making a gift online by visiting giving.msm.edu.
Lectures Postponed
Cori Bargmann, Ph.D.
Due to the progression of the Coronavirus Pandemic, the 3rd Annual Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish Endowed Lectureship lectures will be postponed. They were originally scheduled for:
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Community Presentation:"Accelerating science through technology and collaboration"
Reception: 5:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Lecture: 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Summary: The Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative was founded with the goal of supporting
basic biomedical science and technology to help cure, prevent, or manage all diseases
by the end of the century. Toward that goal, we wish to accelerate scientific discovery:
by encouraging collaboration between scientists, physicians, engineers, and patients,
and by building tools and technologies that enable every scientist to be more successful.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Scientific Lecture: "Neuroscience, technology and collaboration: a personal view"
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Summary: Genes, neurons, and circuits encode information, interpret it based on context and
motivational states, and use that combined input to drive flexible behaviors. Understanding
how these processes propagate across temporal and spatial scales is daunting in the
complex human brain, but more straightforward in the simple brain of the nematode
C. elegans. Our studies of C. elegans foraging behaviors have provided insights into
three levels of behavioral regulation: the gating of information flow by circuit state
over seconds, the extrasynaptic regulation of circuits by neuropeptides and neuromodulators
over minutes and hours, and innate programs that modify behavior across development.
Lecture Speaker
This year's lecturer was scheduled to be Cori Bargmann, Ph.D., Head of Science, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Head of the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior and the Torsten N. Wiesel Professor at Rockefeller University.
Prior Lectures
2019
The 2nd Annual lectures were held on Wednesday, March 27 and Thursday, March 28, 2018. Internationally renowned anesthesiologist-statistician-neuroscientist, Emery N. Brown, Ph.D, M.D., delivered the keynote presentation “Deciphering the Dynamics of the Unconscious Brain Under General Anesthesia." Dr. Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Professor of Computational Neuroscience, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
2018
The inaugural Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish Endowed Lectureship Lectures were held on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Nobel Prize winner Martin Chalfie, Ph.D., co-recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the introduction of GFP as a biological marker. He is also a university professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. Learn more and watch the recorded lectures here.
About Drs. Peter and Marlene MacLeish