Seminars

Matthew J. Girgenti discusses how research on individual brain cells and the three-dimensional organization of DNA is changing the biological understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. The seminar examines how these approaches reveal trauma-associated brain changes and identify possible targets for more effective, personalized treatments. Girgenti is a neuroscientist in Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry. Jeffrey Borenstein moderates this Meet the Scientist session. Online via the BBRF Zoom webinar. Tuesday 13 October 2026, 14:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Follow Register Today on the organizer’s event page to the event-specific Zoom form. Advance registration is available to researchers, students, healthcare providers, mental-health organizations, patients and family members.

Ilaria Ferlenghi discusses a career spanning structural biology, cryo-electron microscopy, vaccine research and development, and the growing role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in scientific innovation and entrepreneurship.

Tim Ebbels presents interpretable machine-learning models for metabolomics and multi-omics using pathway and chemical-class scores. Sparse coverage of the metabolome and uncertain annotations make conventional results difficult to interpret; pathway-based features aim to connect model output directly to biological function. The webinar examines applications from multi-assay mass spectrometry and multi-omics integration to single-cell and mass-spectrometry imaging, discusses methodological challenges and attempts to resolve them, and demonstrates how these approaches can clarify complex biological signals. Online via Zoom. Free for interested life scientists and bioinformaticians, with advance registration required through the Australian BioCommons event page. Tuesday 13 October, 16:00–17:00 AEDT (Australia/Melbourne), equivalent to 05:00–06:00 UTC. The event is subject to the BioCommons Code of Conduct and may be recorded.

Yun Xia presents macrophage–kidney assembloids that address missing immune and vascular components in stem-cell organoids. Directed differentiation, self-organization, genetic perturbation, xenotransplantation and single-cell analysis reveal immune–epithelial interactions. Macrophages from the same parental cells acquire resident phenotypes; diabetic and polycystic kidney models show context-dependent effects on inflammation, epithelial injury and disease progression. Minoru Takasato addresses kidney organoids’ missing urinary outflow by generating bladder tissue from human pluripotent cells. Stepwise differentiation passes through endoderm, hindgut and cloaca; FGF4 posteriorization and growth-factor screening promote urothelial identity. The resulting sacs contain stratified urothelial cell types, stretch and form a barrier, supporting developmental, disease and future therapeutic studies. Online via Zoom. Tuesday 13 October, 11:00–12:30 SGT (Asia/Singapore). Both talks share this session; individual start times are unspecified. Register through the organizer page. Professional, trainee or student status in stem cells, regenerative medicine or an adjacent field is required; organizer approval and recording restrictions apply.

Brain metabolism supplies the energy underlying brain injury, recovery and aging. This webinar brings together three complementary approaches to understanding how repetitive mild traumatic brain injury affects these processes. Sakthivel Ravi examines repetitive mild TBI and aging through multimodal imaging and molecular profiling. Adam Khalifa presents wireless brain glucose sensing for TBI research, and Joe Abisambra discusses disruption of bioenergetic pathways following repetitive mild TBI. The talks are followed by a moderated question-and-answer discussion.

Astrocytes help sustain neural signaling and tissue stability, but injury and implanted devices cause them to change their functions. Tim O'Shea examines how the extent and timing of this response determine tissue protection, regeneration and implant durability. Limited renewal of adult astrocytes contrasts with the greater proliferation and migration of immature cells in newborn mammals. Around implants, continuing movement, infection and other stimuli can prolong the response and affect device performance. The talk uses astrocyte-specific transcriptomic assays to investigate this reprogramming and considers how to improve repair without sacrificing normal astrocyte functions. It also presents biomaterial and cell-transplant approaches being studied in preclinical stroke, spinal cord injury and implant-response models.

Junjie Guo investigates how an intronic nucleotide-repeat expansion in C9orf72 causes familial and some sporadic cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. The talk presents progress in understanding how the expansion changes gene expression, alongside functional-genomics approaches that identify potential therapeutic targets controlling expression of the pathogenic mutation. It also considers which mechanisms and modifiers extend to other disease-causing repeat expansions. Guo is Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine; the seminar is hosted by J. Wren Kim. Online via CUNY ASRC Zoom. Thursday 8 October 2026, 12:00–13:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Follow the Zoom link on the official seminar page; meeting details are also supplied in its abstract PDF. Organized by the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, Neuroscience Initiative. This listing advertises remote attendance.

Tom Nowakowski explains lineage barcoding and single-cell sequencing approaches for reconstructing neural stem-cell family trees and early wiring programs in developing mouse and human brains.

UCL Department of Neuroinflammation Seminar by Professor Emad Moeendarbary (Professor of Cell Mechanics and Mechanobiology, UCL Mechanical Engineering) on how biophysical factors such as substrate stiffness and axon geometry regulate oligodendrocyte behavior and myelin formation, presenting the AxoMetic in vitro myelination platform for discovery of remyelinating therapies.

Farhad Danesh examines how mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, altered metabolism and structural remodelling convert hyperglycaemia into progressive kidney injury. The seminar connects mitochondrial dynamics with diabetic microvascular damage, non-coding RNA regulation and experimental models that establish causal links to disease progression. Genome-wide CRISPR screens and spatial metabolomics reveal cellular gene-regulatory and metabolic changes. Integrating these approaches with molecular genetics, genomics and epigenomics, the work seeks therapeutic targets to prevent diabetic kidney disease progressing to kidney failure. Hybrid: New Research Building Auditorium, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, and Zoom. Thursday 24 September 2026, 16:00–17:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Use the public event registration form to arrange attendance, or follow its Zoom link for remote participation. Organized by Georgetown’s Distinguished Scientist Seminar Series. Danesh is Professor of Medicine and Chief of Nephrology at MD Anderson.

Mariana Wolfner presents research on the molecular changes in eggs, sperm, and females that coordinate successful reproduction, drawing on genetic and physiological studies of fertilization. This NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series event is offered in person and through NIH VideoCast.

Shiv Grewal discusses how chromatin and epigenetic mechanisms establish, maintain, and transmit genome states beyond the DNA sequence itself. This NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series event is offered in person and through NIH VideoCast.

UC Berkeley Molecular & Cell Biology seminar (Divisions of Biochemistry, Biophysics & Structural Biology; Cell Biology, Development & Physiology; and Genetics, Genomics, Evolution & Development) by Luke Gilbert of UCSF on repurposing CRISPR systems to activate and silence genes.

UC Berkeley Molecular & Cell Biology seminar (Division of Genetics, Genomics & Development) by Barak Cohen of Washington University in Saint Louis on massively parallel experimental studies of enhancer function.

Klemens Rottner (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig) presents evidence that profilin acts as a master regulator of actin filament dynamics essential for cell migration and growth, controlling both formin- and Arp2/3 complex-dependent actin assembly pathways.

Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell explain how peripheral immune tolerance prevents the immune system from attacking the body. Sakaguchi follows the identification of regulatory T cells, the CD25 marker, and the relationship between central tolerance and active suppression of self-reactive cells. He considers how changing regulatory T-cell activity could support cancer treatment and transplantation. Brunkow describes genetic investigation of scurfy mice, identification of FOXP3, and the connection between mutations in this gene and human IPEX syndrome. The work establishes a molecular basis for the development and function of regulatory T cells. Ramsdell traces the move from these basic discoveries toward therapeutic strategies, including engineering a patient’s regulatory T cells to target inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis. He discusses early clinical investigation and the ambition of restoring immune balance; these approaches are presented as developing treatments rather than established cures.

Thalamic networks, at the core of thalamocortical and thalamosubcortical communications, underlie processes of perception, attention, memory, emotions, and the sleep-wake cycle, and are disrupted in mental disorders, including schizophrenia and autism. However, the underlying mechanisms of pathology are unknown. I will present novel evidence on key organizational principles, structural, and molecular features of thalamocortical networks, as well as critical thalamic pathway interactions that are likely affected in disorders. This data can facilitate modeling typical and abnormal brain function and can provide the foundation to understand heterogeneous disruption of these networks in sleep disorders, attention deficits, and cognitive and affective impairments in schizophrenia and autism, with important implications for the design of targeted therapeutic interventions

The cortex comprises many neuronal types, which can be distinguished by their transcriptomes: the sets of genes they express. Little is known about the in vivo activity of these cell types, particularly as regards the structure of their spike trains, which might provide clues to cortical circuit function. To address this question, we used Neuropixels electrodes to record layer 5 excitatory populations in mouse V1, then transcriptomically identified the recorded cell types. To do so, we performed a subsequent recording of the same cells using 2-photon (2p) calcium imaging, identifying neurons between the two recording modalities by fingerprinting their responses to a “zebra noise” stimulus and estimating the path of the electrode through the 2p stack with a probabilistic method. We then cut brain slices and performed in situ transcriptomics to localize ~300 genes using coppaFISH3d, a new open source method, and aligned the transcriptomic data to the 2p stack. Analysis of the data is ongoing, and suggests substantial differences in spike time coordination between ET and IT neurons, as well as between transcriptomic subtypes of both these excitatory types.