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Viviana Gradinaru, Ph.D.
Professor of Neuroscience and Biological Engineering
Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
Chen Institute for Neuroscience, California Institute of Technology
Viviana Gradinaru, a 2021 AAAS Fellow "for extraordinary achievements in bioengineering and neuroscience, including development and sharing of multiple novel tools to enable functional and anatomical access to the vertebrate nervous system," holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.S. from Caltech and is now a Professor of Neuroscience and Biological Engineering, and Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at the Chen Institute for Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology. Combining neuroscience, protein engineering, and data science, the Gradinaru Laboratory at Caltech has produced microbial opsins that are tolerated by mammalian cells and viral capsids capable of crossing the blood-–brain barrier in adult mammals, which could enable high-precision, minimally-invasive repair of diseased nervous systems. Dr. Gradinaru has more than 85 publications in top peer-reviewed journals and more than 10 granted patents, additional pending, in areas of optogenetics, viral vectors and tissue clearing and imaging. Gradinaru is also a cofounder and board member of Capsida Biotherapeutics, a fully integrated AAV engineering and gene therapy company.
Dr. Gradinaru has received the NIH Director’s Innovator and Pioneer Awards, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and outstanding young investigator awards from both the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and the Society for Neuroscience. Gradinaru is also a Sloan Fellow, Pew Scholar, Moore Inventor, Vallee Scholar, and World Economic Forum Young Scientist. In 2017 she was the Early-Career Scientist Winner in the Innovators in Science Award in Neuroscience (Takeda and the New York Academy of Sciences); in 2018 she received a Gill Transformative award; and in 2020 Viviana Gradinaru was the winner of Science Magazine & PINS Prize for Neuromodulation and awarded the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. In 2022 Prof. Gradinaru was elected to the National Academy of Inventors.
Professor Gradinaru teaches classes on viral biology and optogenetics techniques in neuroscience. She has also been active in technology dissemination, participating with lab members in technology training workshops as well as establishing the CLOVER Center (Beckman Institute for CLARITY, Optogenetics and Vector Engineering), which provides training and access to the group's reagents and methods for the broader research community (awarded 2x Addgene Blue Flame for reagent dissemination). Gradinaru laboratory trainees went to successful careers in academia and industry.
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Steps to claim CME credits for BWH Neurology Grand Rounds:
Send code WAPVUK to 1-857-214-2277.
For more information about BWH Neurology Grand Rounds 2022-2023 click here
If you have any questions about the CME credit, please contact Partners Office of Continuing Professional Development at PartnersCPD@partners.org.
The MGB CPD Team welcomes your feedback on their CME process. Please email Tracy Young-Pearse, Ph.D. and William R. Renthal, M.D., Ph.D. with your comments.
Upcoming BWH Neurology Grand Rounds schedule for 2022
Recordings of past seminars
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