Lasker Foundation

What can you learn about the human brain from sea slugs? Eric Kandel, who celebrates his 97th birthday today, would know! 🎂

Kandel of @Columbia received an Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 1983 for the application of cell biology techniques to the study of behavior, revealing mechanisms underlying learning and memory. He went on to win a 2000 #NobelPrize for discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system.

But before becoming an award-winning neuroscientist, a young Kandel made a move that his colleagues considered career suicide: he switched his model organism from cats to Mediterranean sea slugs. ow.ly/e4kx50XgFgY

A question from a patient’s bedside can take a physician-scientist far beyond the lab.

🎧 In the first episode of the @theNAMedicine’s new podcast, Research & Rounds, Lasker Board Chair Betsy Nabel and former @CDCgov Director Rochelle Walensky join host Evan Noch to discuss the clinical questions, mentors, and unexpected opportunities that shaped their careers.

Their advice for the next generation? Explore different paths (sometimes outside of academia), build support, and recognize your small victories along the way. nam.edu/researchrounds…

In preterm infants, the cerebellum follows a different developmental path after birth and never fully resembles that of children born at term, @PanosKratimenos et al. report in @ScienceMagazine. Thus cerebellar development may play a role in the developmental lags that premature babies often experience.

@GWSMHS @ChildrensNatl
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

🔬 What drives a scientific breakthrough—collaboration, rivalry, or both?

#ICYMI: Our latest newsletter shares the stories behind Lasker Award-winning hormone research and features an interview with leptin discoverer Jeffrey Friedman.

🔎 Want more stories about discoveries and the people who make them possible? Explore October's issue and subscribe now for November’s, coming soon: laskerfoundation.org/newsletter-sig…

🎥 Check out this "Everyday Scientists," sponsored by the @JCCFUND1937!

A University of Delaware undergrad is studying how the disruption of actin—the microscopic skeleton in your cells—triggers destruction signals that destroy your cartilage instead of repairing it. A better understanding of these destruction signals may help design targeted treatments to stop osteoarthritis before it starts. youtube.com/watch?v=fxILMB…