Not all molecules that regulate gene expression are transcription factors or other proteins. Some are RNAs. This talk will focus on micro RNAs, which are an abundant class of tiny endogenous RNAs that direct the repression of protein-coding genes. Although the functions of microRNAs are just beginning to be understood, it is increasingly clear that they play a wide-spread role in the regulation and evolution of human genes, making it inevitable that their dysfunction will ultimately be linked to numerous human diseases.

Dr. David Bartel is a member of the Whitehead Institute, a professor of biology at MIT, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His doctoral work was carried out at Harvard University in the laboratory of Jack Szostak, where he developed combinatorial techniques to create new catalytic RNAs. Since then his lab has created ribozymes that can catalyze the types of reactions that would have been needed early in evolution, including RNA-templated RNA synthesis.

Dr. Bartel has also contributed to the discovery and understanding of small regulatory RNAs needed to “silence” genes during normal frowth and development of plants, animals, and fungi. His lab was among those to report that animals have a large number of endogeneous regulatory RNAs, called “miroRNAs.” They also found micro RNAs in plants and discovered another type of small regulatory RNA known as “heterochromatic siRNAs” in fungi. Bartel and colleagues developed methods to confidently predict the genes that are regulated by plant micro RNAs, and their recent work in animals indicated that microRNAs regulate the expression of more than one-third of the human genes, including many genes important in human cancers and other diseases.

Dr. Bartel shared the 2002 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Newcomb Cleveland Prize and was awarded the 2005 National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology.

Nora D. Volkow, M.D., became Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in May 2003. A leader in drug addiction research, she is the first woman to serve as NICA’s director since the founding of the institute.

Dr. Volkow came to NIDA from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) where she held concurrent positions including associate director for life sciences, Director of Nuclear Medicine, and Director of the NIDA=Department of Energy Regional Neuroimaging Center. In addition, Dr. Volkow was a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Associate Dean of the Medical School at the State University of New York (SUNY)-Stony Brook.

Dr. Volkow brings to NIDA a long record of accomplishment in drug addiction research. She is a recognized expert on the brain’s do[amine system with her research focusing on the brains of addicted, obese and aging individuals. Her studies have documented changes in the dopamine system affecting the actions of frontal brain regions involved with motivation, drive, and pleasure, and the decline of brain dopamine function with age.

At Brookhaven, Dr. Volkow was the first to use imaging to investigate neurochemical changes that occur during drug addiction. Her primary focus was on mechanisms underlying the reinforcing, addictive, and toxic properties of drugs of abuse in the human brain. She investigated the neurochemical mechanisms underlying the reinforcing, addictive, and toxic properties of drugs of abuse in the human brain. She investigated the neurochemical mechanisms that influence the way individuals respond to drugs of abuse and the potential link to vulnerability to drug abuse, alcoholism, or other impulse behaviors.

Dr. Volkow has used imaging to study the rewarding and therapeutic effects of stimulant drugs. By conducting a systematic comparison of the pharmacological effects of cocaine and methylphenidate (a drug to treat children with attention deficit disorder), her studies have highlighted the importance of pharmacokinetics in enabling the reinforcing effects of stimulant drugs. These studies have shown that stimulant drugs, when used therapeutically, simplify dopamine signals in the brain and also results in improved attention and performance.

Her work includes more that 275 peer-reviewed publications, three edited books, and more than 50 book chapters and non-peer reviewed manuscripts. The recipient of multiple awards, she was elected to membership in the institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences and was names "innovator of the Year" in 2000 by U.S. News and World Report.

Dr. Volkow received her B.A. from Modern American School, Mexico City, Mexico, her M.D. from the National University of Mexico, Mexico City, and her postdoctoral training in psychiatry at New York University. In addition to BNL and SUNY-Stony Brook, Dr. Volkow has woorked at the University of Texas Medical School and Seine Anne Psychiatric Hospital in Paris, France.

Lander is also professor of biology at MIT, Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He founded the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research in 1990. This Center became part of the newly founded Broad Institute in 2003.

Over the past 15 years, Lander and colleagues have developed many of the key tools and generated many of the key information resources of modern mammalian genomics. They have also applied these tools and data to pioneer new ways to understand the basis of disease. Their work includes: mapping and sequencing of the human, mouse and other genomes; understanding the functional elements encoded in genomes through comparative analysis; understanding the genetic variation in the human population and its relationship to disease susceptibility; understanding the distinctive cellular signatures of diseases and of response to drugs; and understanding the mutations underlying cancer. They have also developed new analytical and laboratory techniques for genomics, which have been applied to a wide range of common diseases, including cancer, diabetes, inflammatory diseases and many other genetic illnesses.

Lander’s honors and awards include the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship in 1987, the Woodrow Wilson Prize for Public Service from Princeton University in 1998, the City of Medicine Award in 2001, the Gairdner Foundation International Award of Canada in 2002, and the AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology in 2004. He was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1997 and the U.S. Institute of Medicine in 1999. He has served on governing and advisory boards for various government agencies, academic institutions, scientific societies and corporations.

In addition to his research, Lander is an enthusiastic teacher. He has taught MIT’s core introductory biology course for a decade and, in 1992, won the Baker Memorial Award for Undergraduate Teaching at MIT. He has lectured to both scientific and lay audiences about the medical and social implications of genetics, and delivered a special Millennium Lecture at the White House in 2000.

Lander earned his B.A. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1978 and Ph.D. in mathematics from Oxford University in 1981 as a Rhodes Scholar. He was an assistant and associate professor of managerial economics at the Harvard Business School from 1981–1990.

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are devastating illnesses that affect as much as 3 percen6t of the world population. The pathogenesis of these diseases is poorly understood. This talk will examine what models and data are available with regards to pathogenesis. The perspective for examining the data will be; (1) is the data clear enough to encourage industry to invest practical utility for a physician caring for the patients with either illness?

Dr. Scolnick is currently an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Director of the Broad’s Psychiatric Diseases Initiative.

From 1982 to 2003, Dr. Scolnick served in multiple capacities as president, Merck Research laboratories and Executive Vice President for Science and Technology. Merck & Company, Inc. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Scolnick worked at the National Cancer Institute where this work demonstrated the cellular origin of sarcoma virus oncogenes in Mammals and defined specific genes that cause human cancer. He also worked at the National Heart Institute where his work defined the stop signals in genetic code and the biochemical mechanism that produces the stops.

Dr. Scholnick was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1984 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. He became a member of the Institute of Medicine in 1996.

Dr. Scolnick’s commitment to the mental health field is evidenced by memberships on the Board of Directors for McLean Hospital and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. From 1998 to 2002, he served as a member of the Council of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Scolnick holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a M.D. from Harvard University Medical School.