学　术　报　告

 

报告题目：Deciphering the Molecular Basis of Alzheimer's Disease　

 

报告人：　哈佛大学　Dennis J. Selkoe教授

 

时　间：   2008年9月9日(周二)上午9∶30

地　点：   北京大学医学部逸夫教学楼407室

                                  

北京大学医学部科研处

　　北京大学精神卫生研究所

                                       2008年9月3日

报告人简介：

Dennis Selkoe, the Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has devoted his career to the use of molecular approaches to study Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease and related basic biological questions.  He is a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Virginia School of Medicine.  After initial research training at the National Institutes of Health (NINDS), he completed a residency in neurology at the Harvard/Longwood Program and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuronal cell biology and neurochemistry in the Department of Neuroscience, HMS.  In 1978, he founded a laboratory applying biochemical and cell biological techniques to the study of human neurodegeneration.  

Selkoe and coworkers broke new ground in 1982 when they developed a method to isolate the abnormal neurofibrillary tangles that are a hallmark of AD and described their unusual chemical properties.  With other labs, they identified the microtubule-associated protein tau as the principal component of tangles.  Selkoe then turned his attention to the other hallmark lesion of AD -- the amyloid plaque -- and has conducted extensive experiments on the amyloid ?-protein (A?) and its precursor, APP.  The results led him to formulate a theory -- the amyloid (or Ab) hypothesis -- about the pathogenic cascade that causes AD.  In 1992, Selkoe and collaborators discovered that A? is continuously produced by normal cells throughout life.  This unexpected finding initiated the dynamic study of A? formation in cultured cells and has enabled the identification of A? production inhibitors.  The lab showed that inherited mutations in APP, and later the presenilin genes, cause AD by increasing the generation of A?.  In 1999, Selkoe and colleagues identified presenilin as the long-sought g-secretase, an unprecedented intramembrane aspartyl protese that processes APP, Notch and many other proteins.  Recently, the Selkoe lab conducted a series of studies showing that small, soluble oligomers of A? are responsible for synaptic injury and interfere with memory.

 These advances have led to numerous awards, including the Potamkin Prize (shared with George G. Glenner), the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award, and the A.H. Heineken Price for Medicine and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alzheimer’s Association.  Selkoe is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies,  a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Association of Physicians.  He co-founded and co-directs the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital.  Selkoe was the principal founding scientist of Athena Neurosciences, now Elan Pharmaceuticals.  He has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, the Neuroscience Review Committee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Advisory Council on Aging (NIH).  With former HMS Dean Joseph P. Martin, he founded the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center in 2001.