Epigenetic Regulation in the Nervous System: Basic Mechanisms and Clinical Impact

David Sweatt received a PhD in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University for studies of intracellular signaling mechanisms. He then did a post-doctoral Fellowship at the Columbia University Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, working on memory mechanisms in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Eric Kandel. From 1989 to 2006 he was a member of the Neuroscience faculty at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, rising through the ranks there to Professor and Director of the Neuroscience PhD program. In 2006 he moved to the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he served for ten years as the Evelyn F. McKnight endowed Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at UAB Medical School, and the Director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at UAB. Dr. Sweatt’s laboratory studies biochemical mechanisms of learning and memory, most recently focusing on the role of epigenetic mechanisms in memory formation. In addition, his research program also investigates mechanisms of learning and memory disorders, such as intellectual disabilities, Alzheimer’s Disease, and aging-related memory dysfunction. He is currently the Allan D. Bass endowed Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical School, and has expanded his research program to include developing PharmacoEpigenetic approaches to enable new treatments for cognitive dysfunction. Dr. Sweatt has won numerous awards and honors, including an Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award and election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2013 he won the Ipsen Foundation International Prize in Neural Plasticity, one of the most prestigious awards in his scientific field. In 2014 he was the recipient of the PROSE Award for the most outstanding reference volume published in 2013, for his book Epigenetic Mechanisms in the Nervous System. The book was also one of five finalists for the 2014 Dawkins Award for the most outstanding academic book published in 2013. In 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 Thomson-Reuters named him as a “Highly Cited Researcher” and as one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds.”

Michael J Meaney is a James McGill Professor of Medicine at Douglas Mental health University Institute of McGill University. He is the Director of the Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment Project and of the Developmental Neuroendocrinology Laboratory of McGill University. Meaney was educated at Loyola College of Montreal and received his PhD from Concordia University (Montreal) with post-doctoral training at The Rockefeller University in New York. Meaney’s primary research interest is that of the stable effects of early experience on gene expression and development. Meaney’s research is multidisciplinary and includes studies of behaviour and physiology, to molecular biology and genetics. The primary objective of these studies is to define the processes that govern gene – environment interactions. He has authored over 270 journal articles and has been the recipient of a Scientist Award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and a Distinguished Scientist Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders. He was awarded Lougheed Prize (Alberta Heritage foundation for Medical Research), The Klerman Award (Cornell University), The Patricia Barchas Award (Research in Socio-physiology), The Heinz Lehman Award (Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology) and is the Bank of Montreal Fellow for the Canadian Institutes for Advanced Research. He currently holds a CIHR Senior Scientist Award. Graduates from Meaney’s lab hold faculty appointments across North America, Asia and Europe, including Columbia University, Queen’s University, University of California at Berkley, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and the RIKEN Institute of Japan. Research in the Meaney lab is funded by grants from Canadian (CIHR, NSERC), American (NIMH, NICDH) and International (HFSP) agencies.

Dr. Nestler is the Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where he serves as Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Director of the Friedman Brain Institute. He received his B.A., Ph.D., and M.D. degrees, and psychiatry residency training, from Yale University. He served on the Yale faculty from 1987-2000, where he was the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobiology, and Director of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry. He moved to Dallas in 2000 where he served as the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center until moving to New York in 2008. Dr. Nestler is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The goal of Dr. Nestler’s research is to better understand the molecular mechanisms of addiction and depression based on work in animal models, and to use this information to develop improved treatments of these disorders.

Schahram Akbarian studied medicine at the Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany. He is a board certified psychiatrist and molecular neuroscientist who trained at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge and the University of California at Irvine. In 2002, he joined the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester where he established a research program in psychiatric epigenetics and served as the Director of the Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute. Presently, he heads the Division of Psychiatric Epigenomics in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He is a former recipient of the Klerman award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the Judith Silver Memorial award of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Outstanding resident award of the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Eva King Killam Award for Outstanding Translational Research, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Dr. Akbarian has been a principal investigator on National Institutes of Health-funded research projects since 2001and published close to 100 articles in scientific journals and book chapters. He is a member of professional societies such as the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and presently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and on Editorial Boards of various journals in the field