Dr. J. David Sweatt Named Chairman of UAB Department of Neurobiology
J. David Sweatt, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert on the biological mechanisms underlying learning and memory, has been named chair of the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Department of Neurobiology. He succeeded the department’s interim chair, John J. Hablitz, Ph.D., in February 2006. A native of Montgomery, AL, Sweatt, 44, served as professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, from 1989 until February 2006. He was director of Baylor’s Neuroscience Graduate Program, and from 1995 to 2004, chaired that school’s Neuroscience Ph.D. Program Curriculum Committee.  He authored an internationally recognized textbook, Mechanisms of Memory, that deals with contemporary molecular and cellular approaches to understanding learning and memory.

Evelyn F. McKnight Foundation $5-million Funds Brain Institute 
The School of Medicine at UAB has received a $5-million grant from the McKnight Brain Research Foundation to support research in age-related memory loss. The grant will establish the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute within the UAB Department of Neurobiology located in the Richard C. and Annette N. Shelby Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building. The grant also establishes the Evelyn F. McKnight Endowed Professorship for Learning and Memory in Aging held by Dr. J. David Sweatt, Chairman of the UAB Department of Neurobiology..

Promotion to Professor: Drs. Weiss, Sontheimer, Garner; 
Promotion to Associate Professor with tenure: Drs. Quick and Theibert

First NIH NICHD P01 awarded faculty in Department to study Modulation of Glutamate Synapses in Neonatal Cortex ($2,736,812 direct all years; $1,190,514 F&A all years; total $3,927,326 )

First NIH NICHD P30 Mental Retardation Research Center Core Grant at UAB ($2,500,000 direct all years; $640,000 F & A all years, total $3,140,000)

Completion of renovations for laboratory for Dr. Brenner on the 5th floor of the Spain Rehabilitation building, partially funded by a HSF-GEF grant. Receipt of second HSF-GEF grant for $270,000 for renovations of laboratory of Dr. Lin Mei. SOM is providing funds for additional renovations of space for Dr. Craig Garner’s expansion.

The Department currently has 45 active extramural grants during the 1999-00 year valued at over $6.8 million in annual costs. Twenty-five new grants were awarded in 1999-00 valued at over $15.7 million in total new costs. In addition, there are 7 additional new grants pending (total cost of $12.4 million).

Recruitment of Dr. Lin Mei from the University of Virginia.

The 13 primary faculty published 64 peer-reviewed articles during this academic year in leading journals including: Science, Nature, Neuroscience, Neuron, Genomics, The Journal of Neuroscience, The Journal of Physiology, The Journal of Biological Chemistry, The Journal of Neurophysiology, Molecular Pharmacology, Cancer Gene Therapy, Cancer Research, Cell Molecular Neurobiology, Eur. J. Neuroscience, and GLIA.

The Department awarded 2 PhDs in Neurobiology to: Catherine Fenster (Dr. Quick-mentor) and Stacey MacFarlane (Dr. Sontheimer-mentor) and 1 Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience to Zhiguo Chu (Dr. Hablitz-mentor)

The Department’s flagship courses in the medical curriculum (Medical Neuroscience - Dr. Quick, course director) and in the graduate curriculum (Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology - Dr. Weiss, course director) were rated as extremely successful among the top courses in the Medical and CMB programs.

The Department received its first patent/technology licensing income from the discoveries made through Dr. Sontheimer’s research and Trans Molecular, Inc. (an OADI Company)

Drs. Hablitz, Sontheimer, Weiss, and Lester received a major NIH (NINDS) supplement grant to purchase a combined laser scanning confocal imaging microscope/electrophysiology set-up.

The Department of Neurobiology faculty were eligible this year for the first time to have CMB students and 5 CMB students have chosen Neurobiology faculty as mentors for their Ph.D. including Drs. Dobrunz, Garner, Pozzo-Miller and Sontheimer (4 in the Neurobiology Graduate Program and 1 in the Cell Biology Graduate Program.)

Extremely successful departmental retreat that attracted the Director of the NINDS Intramural Program (Dr. Story Landis) and three other leading neuroscientists (Drs. Larry Katz, Jeff Rothstein and Dan Johnston).

Bringing the Director of NINDS, Dr. Gerry Fischbach, to UAB for the first Distinguished Scholar Lecture in the CMB series and Medical Student Research Day.

Dr. Friedlander is PI on the new P01 program grant and P30 core grants awarded by NIH NICHD this year. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award and gave the annual keynote lecture at the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois. He was appointed as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, the National Caucus of Basic Biomedical Science Chairs, served on the American Association for the Advancement of Science Research Competitiveness Service Biomedical Sciences Review Team, was appointed to the National Advisory Committee of the U. of Wisconsin Waisman Mental Retardation Research Center and served for a second year as Chair of the NIH NIMH Conte Research Center Special Emphasis Panel. His lab showed for the frist time that nitric oxide can enhance sensory signal detection by individual neurons in the intact brain. In addition, Dr. Friedlander gave invited talks at Baylor College of Medicine, the U. of Pittsburgh, the U. of Oslo and the U. of Bergen, Norway and international symposia presentations at "The First International Conference on the Biology, Chemistry, and Therapeutic Actions of Nitric Oxide" in San Francisco, the "World Congress of the International Association for the Study of Intellectual Disabilities" in Seattle and at the Society of Neuroscience Satellite Symposium on "LTP, LTD and Synaptic Plasticity in the Brain," in New Orleans. In addition, Dr. Friedlander gave local invited lectures this year to UAB’s Dept. of Cell Biology, Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics and Dept. of Neurobiology and in the HHMI-supported summer High School Teacher’s Molecular Biology Program at the McWane Center.

Dr. Brenner’s research on the mutations in the GFAP gene has demonstrated a genetic basis for Alexander’s disease and identified the mutations responsible for a majority of cases. He received the Grupo Carso Award from the Mexican Foundation for Health and the Moore Award from the American Academy of Neuropathology for the best paper on clinico-pathological correlation. Dr. Brenner was co-chair and speaker at the Symposium on "Intermediate Filaments, Inclusion Bodies and Disease" presented by the American Neurochemistry Society and presented Grand Rounds in the Department of PM&R at UAB.

Dr. Dobrunz, recruited to UAB last year from the Salk Institute, presented her research findings at the Neural Information and Coding Workshop in Grindelwald, Switzerland and at the Spring Hippocampal Research Conference, Grand Cayman, BWI. Dr. Dobrunz received an HHMI start-up award from UAB and she has a project on the Department’s newly awarded P01.

Dr. Garner’s research on how components of the active zone are transported to the presynaptic terminal on a precursor dense core vesicle is a major breakthrough in defining how synapses are formed and may eventually show how additional neurotransmitter release sites are established during LTP. Dr. Garner was invited to present his research at two international symposia (Neurex Conference in Basel, Switzerland and Blankenese Conference in Hamburg Germany) and at a Gordon Conference on Assembly of Presynaptic Junctions in NH.

Dr. Hablitz discovered a new developmentally regulated chloride homeostatic mechanism in rat neorcortical neurons. He was invited to present his research at the Workshop on Neurobiology of Epilepsy in Cesky, Krumlov, Czech Republic; at the Institute of Physiology at University of Munich, Germany; and at the Spring Hippocampal Research Conference at Grand Cayman, BWI. In addition Dr. Hablitz was appointed to the Peer-Review Panel of the VA Merit Review Board.

Dr. Lester published a study in the Journal of Physiology that is the first to demonstrate that the well-documented phenomenon of nicotinic receptor runup does not involve new receptors. He also was selected to chair and organize the 10th Neuropharmacology Conference in association with the Annual Society of Neuroscience Meeting to be held in New Orleans this Fall.

Dr. Mangel obtained the first evidence of how adenosine affects the light responses of neurons in the retina through A₂ a receptors on photoreceptor cells acting as a circadian clock signal for the night, increasing rod input and decreasing cone input to horizontal cells via an increase in cAMP. He also was elected Chair of the Visual Neurophysiology Section Program Planning Committee for the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and was invited to speak at an international symposium sponsored by ARVO. He also was an invited speaker at the Winter Conference on Brain Research.

Dr. Mei discovered a novel mechanism regulating neuregulin signaling in mammalian tumor cells and in neurons which was published in Neuron and for which a provisional patent application has been filed. He also was an invited presenter at the Gordon Research Conference on Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology in Hong Kong. Dr. Mei serves on the advisory board of the Shanghai Brain Research Institute.

Dr. Pozzo-Miller was an invited speaker at an NIH NICHD Symposium on "Modulation of Vesicle Docking and Transmitter Release in the Hippocampus by Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor," and two international symposia ("The role of neurotrophic factors in hippocampal synaptic plasticity" in Chile and "Neurotrophic factors and hippocampal synaptic plasticity: Increase in the number of docked vesicles at the active zone" in Argentina) and the Journal of Physiology Symposium on "Neuronal Compartmentalization: Channels, Receptors and Signaling" in Miami.

Dr. Quick served as editor for the Receptor Biochemistry and Methodology Series: Transporters, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York and has been appointed to the MOJ COBRE study section, as a Wellcome Trust ad hoc Grant Reviewer, as an NIH MDCN7 Study Section ad hoc reviewer and as a NIDA Special Emphasis Panel reviewer (program project study section).

Dr. Sontheimer submitted two new patent applications for his discovery of the mechanism that is likely responsible for the neuronal death surrounding gliomas in vivo. He was invited to present his research at the Winter Conference on Brain Research and to be a course faculty member at the Woods Hole, Marine Biological Laboratories this summer. In addition he was appointed to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Student Fellowship Review Panel and the NIH Brain Tumor Review Group 2000.

Dr. Theibert’s work, published in J. Cell Biology, provides evidence that centaurin a is a neuronal PI 3-kinase target that is poised to link cell surface receptor activation to regulation of the actin cytoskeleton at the synapse. She was invited to present her research on centurin a by the Institute Curie-Section Recherche, Paris, France; Institut de Pharmacologie due CNRS, Sophia-Antipolis, France; and at INSERM Unit, Strasbourg, France.

Dr. Weiss completed the first study to directly correlate affinities and efficacies of agonists in the same population of functional receptors. He was invited to present his work at the Progress in Neuroscience Seminar Series at Cornell University Medical College and at the International GABA 2000 Symposium in Cairns, Australia. Dr. Weiss was appointed as a regular member of the NIH MDCN3 Study Section.

Establishment of an cooperative exchange training program for Basic Scientists and Clinical Scientists with the University of Oslo and the University of Bergen, Norway.

Selection of medical student, Harrison Walker, for an HHMI Fellowship. Mr. Walker worked in the Department of Neurobiology laboratories.

Selection of Neel Varshney, as a Rhodes Scholar to attend Oxford University. Mr. Varshney worked in several Department of Neurobiology laboratories.