Researchers from around the world gathered May 13-14 at Columbia
to discuss the latest discoveries on the brain and the mind
spanning the entire spectrum of neuroscience, from the atomic
level up to higher order systems that construct consciousness.
Organized by Dr. Thomas Jessell, professor of biochemistry and
molecular biophysics, and Dr. Joanna Rubinstein, senior
associate dean for institutional and global initiatives at
Columbia University Medical Center, the day and half day
symposium was divided into three half-day sessions: Brain
Structure, Brain Function and Disease, and Biology of the Mind.
In the first session, Brain Structure, Dr. Gerald Fischbach,
executive vice president and dean, said that despite the brain's
great complexity, research is on the verge of translating basic
brain research into treatments for neurological disorders.
Rockefeller University's Dr. Roderick MacKinnon, the 2003 Nobel
Prize winner in Chemistry, discussed his own basic research,
which has revealed the structure and functi