Space is limited; $10 cover (cash only) includes one drink
First Come, First Served
No Reservations, No Saving Seats

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Spring 2010 Series on the Upper West Side:

Winners and Losers: Communal Decisions in Tissue Development
Developmental Geneticist Laura Johnston
January 11, 6–7 p.m.

Animal size and shape is controlled with amazing precision during development. As a result, within a given species the size range is fairly narrow. Many factors contribute to this precision, and some of the most interesting are local, arising from communal decisions made by cells within growing organs. Come learn about the efforts to understand how cells perceive themselves as constituents of a growing tissue, and how they sense the cues in their microenvironment that regulate cell growth and survival during development, in regeneration, and in disease.

Salt, Blood Pressure, and You
Physiologist and Physician Qais Al-Awqati
February 8, 6–7 p.m.

High blood pressure occurs in almost a third of the population. It is well known that it runs in families and recent genetic studies have shown that all Mendelian forms of hypertension are due to mutations in the genes that regulate salt balance by the kidney. There is also a wealth of population studies linking eating a high salt diet to high blood pressure. Despite this mass of scientific evidence political and industrial forces have managed to insert into the public debate that the link is actually controversial. High blood pressure is unequivocally associated with high mortality and morbidity. We will discuss the different types of evidence that links high salt intake to blood pressure and what strategies are there to understand the nature of the evidence that is used and misused in this important public health issue.

The Conqueror Worm: What Model Organism Genetics Tells Us About Life
Neurogeneticist and Nobel Laureate Martin Chalfie
March 8, 6–7 p.m.

Thomas Hunt Morgan published the first paper using fruit flies for genetic experiments one hundred years ago. The use of a small number of organisms (often called model organisms) for genetic studies continues to this day to give insights into basic biological mechanisms and to provide a means of studying human disease. I will describe how genetic analysis using one model organism, the small round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, has broadened our understanding of development, nervous system function, and other biological processes as well as changed the way we study these processes in other organisms.

Of Mice and Men: The Hunt For Mood Genes
Neurobiologist René Hen
April 12, 6–7 p.m.

Although depression has a distinct genetic component, efforts to identify genes that contribute significantly to this disorder have been largely unsuccessful. The emerging consensus is that multiple genes are involved and that a combination of genetic and environmental factors acting in concert determines whether an individual is likely to develop depression. Come hear about the efforts to model depression and the antidepressant response in rodents as well as the mechanisms and circuits that are believed to underlie this pathology.

Click here to read about René Hen and his work featured on the Columbia University Medical Center Web site.