讲座题目： Calpain-1 and calpain-2: The Yin and Yang of plasticity and neurodegeneration

 

主讲人：Prof. Michel Baudry

        (Dean of Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA)

 

时间：9月16日下午15:00 

 

地点：医学院成智楼二楼会议室

 

主讲人介绍：

Dr. Michel Baudry is currently Professor of Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California. His previous position was Professor of Biological Sciences, Neurology and Biomedical Engineering at University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA. After graduating from the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris (France) in 1971, Baudry obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Paris VII in 1977. In 1978 he moved to the United States of America for a postdoctoral period with Prof. Gary Lynch at UC Irvine. He remained at UC Irvine as an Assistant and then an Associate Professor until 1989, before moving to USC in 1989.

Baudry is a world-known neuroscientist and has published over 350 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. Baudry has also been involved in several biopharmaceutical start-up companies. In 1986 he was one of the co-founders of Synaptics, Inc, the Human Interface company. In 1991, he co-founded Eukarion, Inc, and more recently participated in the transformation of Eukarion into MindSet, Rx. In 2007, he also co-founded Rhenovia Pharma, a drug discovery& development company located in Mulhouse, France.

 

讲座详细信息：
Calpains are a family of calcium-activated proteases and have been proposed to play important roles in both synaptic plasctity and neurodegeneration. The seminar will present recently published and new data indicating that the 2 major calpain isoforms in brain, calpain-1 and calpain-2, have opposite functions in these phenomena. Thus calpain-1 activation is necessary for certain forms of synaptic plasticity (LTP and LTD) and learning and memory and is neuroprotective. On the other hand, calpain-2 activation limits the extent of long-term potentiation and is neurodegenerative. The results suggest that a selective calpain-2 inhibitor would both enhance learning and memory and be neuroprotective. We will provide evidence that this is indeed the case, and will discuss future directions for our research.