Department of Neuroscience News

Dr. Matt Rasband is a professor, and the Vivian L. Smith Endowed Chair in Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine. He views it as both a privilege and a responsibility to effectively train the next generation of scientists. Dr. Rasband serves as the director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program and has managed an NINDS T32 training grant since 2009. Over the years, he has mentored 22 Ph.D. students in his laboratory and 15 postdoctoral researchers, in addition to serving on more than 100 Ph.D. thesis advisory committees. Many of his former trainees now lead their own research labs. Thank you, Dr. Rasband, for all the important work you continue to do!

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.