At 11am on Monday 4th November, Liqun Luo will deliver the 2024 John Kendrew Lecture on ‘Wiring specificity of neural circuits’. The lecture will be delivered in the LMB’s Max Perutz Lecture Theatre and anyone interested is warmly invited to attend; if you are not at the LMB and wish to attend a seminar, please contact the seminar secretary.
Liqun Luo is the Ann and Bill Swindells Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Biology, and Professor of Neurobiology by courtesy at Stanford University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He has led a research group at Stanford University since December 1996, where he investigates the development and assembly of neural circuits and how their structure enables the performance of specific functions.
Current research projects include investigations into the assembly of the fly olfactory circuit and the assembly of neural circuits in mice brains. In both animal models, Liqun’s group has also used genetic and viral strategies to elucidate neuronal organisational systems, as well as examining the supportive architecture which allows for the transmission of core chemicals including serotonin and dopamine. To enable this research, Liqun’s group is also focused on developing new tools to better analyse neural circuit assembly and function.
Liqun’s research has been recognised with several awards, including the Pradel Award (National Academy of Sciences, 2019), the Lawrence C. Katz Prize for Innovative Research in Neuroscience (Duke University, 2013), and the H. W. Mossman Award (American Association of Anatomists, 2007). Liqun is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Lecture abstract
Developing brains use a limited number of cell-surface proteins to specify connection specificity of a much larger number of neurons and synapses. How is this feat achieved? How do different cell-surface proteins work together to assemble a functional circuit? To address these questions, I will first describe our work using the fly olfactory circuit as a model. I will then discuss functions of homologs of cell-surface proteins we identified in the fly olfactory circuits in determining wiring specificity of neural circuits in the mouse brain.
Background information
The John Kendrew lecture is named in honour of LMB Nobel Laureate John Kendrew. It is one of a series of named lectures organised by the LMB and given by eminent scientists from around the world. These talks are supported by AstraZeneca and the Max Perutz Fund.
John Kendrew was born in Oxford in 1919 and first came to Cambridge in 1936 as a student at Trinity College, earning a First Class Honours in Chemistry. During World War Two, John was recruited to the Air Ministry Research Establishment where he worked on early radar applications, before returning to Cambridge in 1946 to join Max Perutz at the MRC Unit for Research on the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems (now the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology). His research focused on protein structure and in 1958 he produced the first three-dimensional structure of a protein: myoglobin. This discovery helped Max to discover the structure of haemoglobin the following year and, in 1962, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In the 1960’s John jointly founded the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and helped create the European Molecular Biological Laboratory (EMBL) where he was the inaugural Director. He also founded and was Editor in Chief of the Journal of Molecular Biology. From 1981-1987 he was President of St John’s College, Oxford. He died in Cambridge on 23rd August 1997.
Further references
Liqun Luo – Stanford University profile
John Kendrew Biography
LMB Named Lectures