Brown & Goldstein: Celebrating 50 Years of Partnership

Richard Axel, M.D.

Topic: Drifting and Disappearing Sensory Representations in the Cortex


Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1984)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2004)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (1983)
Professor and co-Director, Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University

Dr. Axel identified more than 1,000 special receptors in the nose that transmit olfactory information – our sense of smell – to the brain. His current work centers on how recognizing odors leads to meaningful thoughts and behavior.

Bonnie L. Bassler, Ph.D.

Topic: Quorum Sensing Across Domains: From Viruses to Bacteria to Eukaryotes

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2005)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2006)
Chair and Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

Dr. Bassler discovered key insights into the ways bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing. Her research is paving the way to the development of novel antimicrobial therapies by disrupting quorum-sensing-mediated communication.

Hans Clevers, M.D., Ph.D.

Topic: Organoids to Model Human Disease

Member, National Academy of Sciences (2014)
President, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Head of Pharma Research and Early Development, Roche (Switzerland)
Professor, Molecular Genetics, Utrecht University

Dr. Clevers was the first to identify living stem cells in the intestine and is one of the world's leading researchers on adult stem cells, their role in cancer, and their potential for regenerative therapy.

Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Ph.D.

Topic: Inner Workings of Channelrhodopsins and Brains

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2014)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2012)
Professor, Departments of Bioengineering; Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

Dr. Deisseroth specializes in affective disorders and autism-spectrum disease and has discovered neural cell types and connections that cause adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. His laboratory created transformative technologies to control neurons with light, called optogenetics, as well as hydrogel-tissue chemistry methods to study intricate details of intact tissues.

K. Christopher Garcia, Ph.D.

Topic: Engineering Cell Surface Signaling

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2005)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2012)
Member, National Academy of Medicine (2016)
Professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University

Dr. Garcia's laboratory investigates structural and functional aspects of cell surface receptor recognition and activation. His focus has been on receptor systems of the immune system (TCR/MHC, cytokines, chemokine GPCR), but he also studies other receptor-ligand complexes that are important in neurobiology and development.

Ardem Patapoutian, Ph.D.

Topic: How Do You Feel? The Molecules That Sense Touch

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2014)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2021)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2017)
Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Scripps Research

Dr. Patapoutian discovered the molecular underpinnings of the sense of touch. He identified novel ion channels activated by temperature, mechanical force, and increased cell volume. His laboratory has shown that these ion channels play crucial roles in sensing temperature, touch, proprioception, and pain.

Kevan M. Shokat, Ph.D.

Topic: Small Molecule Mutant-Specific K-Ras Inhibitors

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2005)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2009)
Professor, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco
Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Shokat uses methods of bioorganic chemistry to decode cellular signaling networks at the single cell and whole organism levels. He is particularly interested in developing methods to understand the differences and functions of the largest family of enzymes in the human genome, protein kinases.

Leslie B. Vosshall, Ph.D.

Topic: Neurobiology of the World’s Most Dangerous Animal

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2008-2022)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2015)
Member, National Academy of Medicine (2021)
Professor and Head, Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, The Rockefeller University

Dr. Vosshall’s lab uses fruit flies, mosquitoes, and humans to understand how the nervous system processes and perceives odors. She also studies the genetic basis of mosquitoes’ host-seeking and blood-feeding behaviors. Work from the Vosshall lab led to the discovery that a mosquito co-receptor is responsible for its attraction to humans.

Feng Zhang, Ph.D.

Topic: Exploration of Biological Diversity

Member, National Academy of Sciences (2018)
Member, National Academy of Medicine (2021)
Core Member, Broad Institute
Professor of Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Zhang is well known for his central role in developing optogenetics to control neurons with light and CRISPR gene-editing technologies. His lab is focused on using synthetic biology to develop technologies for genome and epigenome engineering to study neurobiology.
Photo by Stan Grazier