Description:

Titile: "Ion channels as drug targets for pain and epilepsy."
Abstract: Mammalian neurons express dozens of different types of ion channels and different types of neurons express different combinations of channels. Knowing how ion channel expression differs among neurons can guide new pharmacological strategies for selectively modulating activity of particular types of neurons. The seminar will discuss efforts to develop novel drugs for pain and epilepsy using this approach.

Speaker: Bruce Palmer Bean, PhD; Robert Winthrop Professor of Neurobiology; Harvard University.

View his faculty profile (link) or publications (link). 

Biography: Bruce Bean is Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. He did his PhD research in Biophysics at the University of Rochester, did post-doctoral work in cardiac electrophysiology with Richard W. Tsien at Yale University Medical School, and has had previous faculty positions at the University of Iowa and at the Vollum Institute of Oregon Health Sciences University. His research focuses on understanding the diversity of ion channels in different kinds of mammalian neurons and using that knowledge to develop new treatments for pathophysiological conditions, including epilepsy, pain, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.