Department of Neuroscience News

We are proud to announce that Dr. Jeannie Chin has been promoted to the rank of tenured professor in the Department of Neuroscience. Dr. Chin joined BCM in 2015 and has since made outstanding contributions in the areas of neuroscience, specifically with her Alzheimer's research. Dr. Chin has become a highly respected member of our academic community. Throughout her career, Dr. Chin has mentored countless students and junior colleagues. Her work continues to shape the future of neuroscience, both within and beyond our institution. 

Dr. Jacob Reimer is leading a collaborative research project to simplify the brain proofreading process with the development of a software package called NEURD, short for "NEURal Decomposition." 

“The primary goal of this collaboration has been to uncover the importance of wiring in the brain, to reveal the biological ‘secret sauce’ that enables the brain's extraordinary problem-solving capabilities, which remain beyond the reach of current machine learning systems".

We are excited to welcome Dr. David Lipschutz as our new tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience. He earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California and completed postdoctoral research in Applied Mathematics at Brown University and Electrical Engineering at the Technion. At the Flatiron Institute with the Simons Foundation, he collaborated on Computational Neuroscience with Dr. Dmitri Chklovskii and Dr. Eero Simoncelli. Dr. Lipschutz’s research focuses on developing mathematical frameworks to understand how biological and artificial neural networks learn and adapt. In his lab at BCM, he aims to advance these theories and analyze neural and behavioral data from experiments. Welcome, Dr. Lipschutz!

The labs of Dr. Jiang and Dr. McGinley have made significant strides in auditory research by identifying diverse cell types in the cochlear nucleus, a vital brainstem region responsible for processing auditory information. These groundbreaking findings have been published in Nature Communications, highlighting the importance of their work in understanding auditory processing mechanisms. 

Publication title: Molecular logic for cellular specializations that initiate the auditory parallel processing pathways

The Brown Foundation Chair in Neuroscience was established in 2017 by The Brown Foundation, Inc. Dr. Javier Medina’s research program aims to understand the role of the cerebellum in the neural control of movement. His work focuses on investigating how neural circuits use supervised learning approaches to make predictions. This work has implications for understanding and treating a wide range of motor and cognitive brain disorders that have been linked to deficits in cerebellar function. Congratulations, Dr. Medina! 

The Vivian L. Smith Endowed Professorship in Neuroscience was established in 2013 through the generosity of Vivian L. Smith. Dr. François St-Pierre is a McNair Scholar who has established expertise in developing innovative new technologies for imaging biological systems focusing on the brain and cancer. His work, funded by multiple federal mechanisms and private foundations, has expanded beyond developing voltage indicators, helping to revolutionize protein engineering with his pioneering single-cell screening techniques, achieving optimization speeds vastly surpassing traditional methods. Congratulations, Dr. St-Pierre!

We are delighted to announce that our newest tenure-track faculty member, Dr. Jay Hennig, has joined the Department of Neuroscience as an assistant professor. Dr. Hennig obtained his Ph.D. in Neural Computation and Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard University with Dr. Samuel Gershman. Dr. Hennig's research focuses on bridging theory and statistical analysis of neural population activity and behavior. In his lab at BCM, he plans to continue developing a framework using artificial neural networks, statistical analyses, and dynamical systems theory to study neural representations of reinforcement learning. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Hennig to the neuroscience community and wishing him every success.

Dr. Kara Marshall, assistant professor of neuroscience and McNair Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine has been named to the 2024 class of Rita Allen Foundation Scholars. She is among seven researchers nationwide who were chosen in recognition of their ambitious research to advance knowledge on the development, prevention and treatment of human diseases. This foundation celebrates early-career leaders in the biomedical sciences whose research holds exceptional promise for revealing new pathways to advance human health. 

Dr. Mingshan Xue, an associate professor of neuroscience and the Caroline DeLuca Scholar at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Institute, has been honored with the 2024 STXBP1 Impact Award. This award acknowledges significant contributions to the pursuit of improved treatments and a better future for individuals with STXBP1-related disorders.

Dr. Xue's research on STXBP1-related disorders began in 2014 when he established a side project investigating the rare mutation. STXBP1 is considered one of the most common genetic causes of epilepsy. Learn more about Dr. Xue's research story.

Dr. Xiaolong Jiang, associate professor of neuroscience, along with other collaborators at Baylor College of Medicine, completed a pioneering study, recently published in Cancer Cell, that uncovered a new cell type in human brain tumors. This is the first study to use cutting-edge Patch-sequencing to reveal human glioma cells combined electrophysiological, morphological, and genomic properties. This work results from extensive equal collaboration across multiple disciplines – neurosurgery, bioinformatics, neuroscience, and cancer modeling.” These findings are expected to enhance the clinical assessment of the patient’s condition and prognosis significantly. Read the paper for more information!

Congratulations to Dr. Jeffrey Magee, professor of neuroscience, on receiving the 2024 Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Excellence in Research Award. This research award has been given to Dr. Magee due to his highly significant contributions to research at Baylor College of Medicine. He and other five recipients were honored at a ceremony at Baylor College of Medicine on May 21, 2024, where they each presented a talk about the work for which they were recognized. 

Faculty Awards Day took place on May 22, 2024, to recognize Baylor College of Medicine faculty for their excellence in education, patient care, service and professionalism. Dr. Jacob Reimer, assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience, was the recipient of a 2024 Norton Rose Fulbright Faculty Excellence Award in the category of Teaching and Evaluation, which is given to most skilled and committed educators in our college.

It is with great pleasure we announce the promotion of one of our faculty members, Dr. Xiaolong Jiang, to the position of Associate Professor. Dr. Jiang's research focuses on how each brain region is composed of distinct neuronal cell types with characteristic morphological, electrophysiological, and molecular properties, and these cell types are wired in a specific manner to form a functional circuit. To learn more about Dr. Jiang's research, visit the Jiang Lab website. 

Drs. Sarah Heilbronner, associate professor of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience and Andreas Tolias, professor in the Department of Neuroscience, were each awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales (BRAIN CONNECTS). This project is a part of Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, better known as the BRAIN Initiative.  Drs. Heilbronner and Tolias are leading two of the 11 research projects in total, from across the globe, that were awarded a grant by BRAIN CONNECTS.

Congratulations to Dr. Francois St-Pierre, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and McNair Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine, on receiving the 2023 Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Excellence in Research Award. He and other five recipients were honored at a ceremony at Baylor College of Medicine on Sept. 18, where they each presented a talk about the work for which they were recognized. You can learn more about Dr. St-Pierre’s pioneering research and the prestigious DeBakey award in From the Labs.

We are thrilled to announce that a new faculty member, Dr. Yudong Gao, Ph.D., joined the Department of Neuroscience as an assistant professor and McNair Scholar. The Gao Lab will employ multidimensional proteomics to reveal hidden pathways in neurodevelopment and plasticity. Leveraging innovations in protein engineering, Dr. Gao will seek to discover new functional modulators of protein networks for regulating neural signaling. Dr. Gao joins Baylor from Duke University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow. Before that, he earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Tennessee Heath Science Center, Memphis, and a biomedical engineering degree from Zhejiang University in China. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Gao to the neuroscience community!

Congratulations to Dr. Kara Marshall, assistant professor of neuroscience and a McNair Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine, on being selected by the Pew Charitable Trust to join the prestigious Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences.  She will join other researchers from the 2023 class at the annual meeting of Pew Biomedical Programs next spring and give a lecture along with a poster presentation. The 2023 cohort of Pew Scholars joins an alumni group of more than 1,000 scientists who have received awards from Pew since 1985. The four years of funding will help support exciting research conducted in Dr. Marshall’s lab that explores how specific cells that sense forces, such as pressure and stretching, regulate the functionality of the gastrointestinal tract and bladder. Read the press release. 

Dr. Kimberley Tolias, professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, and Dr. Lingyong Li, associate professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the department of anesthesiology, discovered a gene and mechanism regulating chronic pain. The results of their study were published in Neuron, in the paper titled “Tiam1 Coordinates Synaptic Structural and Functional Plasticity Underpinning the Pathophysiology of Neuropathic Pain.” 

They identified the enzyme Tiam1 as a key driver of the maladaptive synaptic plasticity responsible for the development and maintenance of neuropathic pain, and they showed that abolishing Tiam1 activity can alleviate neuropathic pain symptoms in a variety of animal models, thus identifying Tiam1 as a potentially promising therapeutic target to treat neuropathic pain effectively.

Dr. Tolias was also recently interviewed by PainRelief.com about the background of this study and the main findings.

Dr. Kara Marshall was named a 2023 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski Scholar on May 9, 2023. This is a new program from HHMI that recognizes exceptional early-career faculty with demonstrated potential to become leaders in their respective research fields. The award is named in honor of Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), who was a major force in increasing the number of scientists, engineers and physicians from underrepresented backgrounds in the United States. Kara is one of 31 Freeman Hrabowski Scholars from 22 institutions across the United States who will be appointed to a five-year renewable term. In all, HHMI has committed $1.5 billion to support up to 150 Freeman Hrabowski Scholars over the next 20 years.

Dr. Xiaolong Jiang, assistant professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, along with collaborators, completed a pioneering study recently published in ELife that revealed a surprisingly rich cellular heterogeneity and local wiring logic of a group of brainstem neurons called locus coeruleus. Given that the dysregulation of the LC has been implicated in many neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders including autism and Alzheimer's disease, these findings provide an essential knowledge base to decipher cellular and circuit mechanisms of these diseases. Read the paper.

Dr. Paul Pfaffinger has been named the chair of the Department of Neuroscience effective Feb. 1, 2023. Dr. Pfaffinger is a professor of neuroscience, holding a secondary appointment in the Department of Integrative Physiology, and has been a Baylor faculty member for more than 30 years. His lab focuses on understanding the regulation of ion channels and their roles in native neurons. Currently, research in the Pfaffinger lab is focusing on understanding the roles of channel diversity in information processing as well as the biophysical mechanisms underlying ion channel regulation by small peptide modulators and the role of this regulation in the brain. Together, the members of our department strive to advance science and discovery, improve human health, and provide a collaborative and inclusive environment for all to work and train. We look forward to continuing the growth of our department under Dr. Pfaffinger’s leadership: BCM press release.

Dr. Melanie Samuel, associate professor of neuroscience and the Huffington Center on Aging was named the 73rd Mallinckrodt Scholar by the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation. 

This national competition recognizes innovative investigators engaged in biomedical research that has the potential to significantly advance the understanding, diagnosis or treatment of disease. Studies funded by this award will investigate roles for neuron-microglia signaling in modifying neural disease outcomes.