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Talk: "Electric Fields in the Brain - A New Interpretation of an Old Signal"

Flavio Frohlich, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Associate McCormick Laboratory Yale University, School of Medicine

(UCSD Comp Neuro IGERT alumnus)

Date: Friday, February 18th
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Location: The Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior

http://neurosciences.ucsd.edu/2page.php?id=GrandRounds

Osaka-UCSD Workshop 2011

See tentative agenda here ...

Acknowledgement:

TDLC is an National Science Foundation funded Science of Learning Center. Its purpose is to understand how the
element of time and timing is critical for learning and to apply this understanding to improve educational practice.

Talk: "Electric Fields in the Brain - A New Interpretation of an Old Signal"

Flavio Frohlich, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Associate McCormick Laboratory Yale University, School of Medicine

(UCSD Comp Neuro IGERT alumnus)

Date: Friday, February 18th
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Location: The Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior

http://neurosciences.ucsd.edu/2page.php?id=GrandRounds

BY JOHN R. PLATT
Link to article...

Every year, IEEE honors some of its most noteworthy members with the prestigious distinction of Fellow. This year, 321 senior members were elevated to Fellow status, including four whose work in biomedicine and medical applications are particularly noteworthy.

THE HEART OF ENGINEERING
Dorin Panescu, chief technical officer and vice president of NewCardio, a company in San Jose, Calif., that is developing a three-dimensional approach to electrocardiography, was elevated to IEEE Fellow for his “contributions to medical devices for cardiac applications” in the application engineer category. He credits his career-long membership in the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society with influencing his success.

“EMBS has supported my career growth, from grad student to my current role,” he says. “Once I was employed in the medical device industry and in years thereafter, IEEE-EMBS also allowed me to give back by offering me opportunities to tell students and their teachers about what to expect in a biomedical engineering career and how to prepare for the field.”

With more than 250 patents to his name, and heavily published in the society’s journals with more than 100 technical articles to his name, Panescu’s work has had a tremendous impact on patients around the world. Devices based on his patents are in clinical use worldwide to treat abnormal heart rhythms, congestive heart failure, and related conditions. These devices include implantable cardiac-resynchronization devices and wireless remote patient monitors, as well as procedures involving cardiac ablation, which vaporize dysfunctional heart tissue using radio frequencies. He also has contributed to the development of implantable pacemakers and defibrillators and a 3-D ECG platform testing the safety of cardiac drugs during their development.

THE MICROFABRICATOR
Mark G. Allen has made significant strides in the field of microelectronics during the past 20 years. He was elevated to IEEE Fellow in the educator category for his “contributions to micro- and nanofabrication technologies for micromechanical systems.”

Allen has been with Georgia Tech since 1989. He is senior vice provost for research and innovation and acting director of the school’s Georgia Electronic Design Center. There he also runs the microSensors and microActuators research group, which focuses on the design, fabrication, testing, and packaging of micro-electro-mechanical systems. They’re being applied in such devices as high-temperature wireless pressure sensors in jet engines and needles for painless drug delivery.

Those microneedles led Allen and a colleague to found Redeon in 1999. The company, later acquired and absorbed by Biovalve, commercialized approaches to delivering insulin and other drugs transdermally. The microneedles cause patients no pain, because they do not pass through the dead cells of the outermost layer of the skin to the layers below that contain nerves, but penetrate deep enough to administer drugs effectively.

Allen also cofounded CardioMEMS, in Atlanta, in 2001 to commercialize wireless implantable microsensors to treat aneurysms and congestive heart failure. The company’s EndoSure wireless pressure measurement system, a hermetically sealed sensor the size of a paper clip, has been implanted into more than 6000 patients.

THE SILICON BRAIN
Neuroengineering pioneer Gert Cauwenberghs was elevated to Fellow in the research engineer category for his “contributions to integrated biomedical instrumentation.” A professor of bioengineering and biology at the University of California at San Diego, Cauwenberghs has made groundbreaking contributions to the design, implementation, and application of very-large-scale integrated silicon microchips for adaptive neural computation and sensory information processing. The chips are used in implantable neural interfaces, acoustic microarrays, and adaptive optics, as well as for biometric identification.

Much of Cauwenberghs’ research focuses on developing silicon microsystems inspired by the synaptic mechanisms of the human brain. The goals of his research, he says, are threefold: “to empower silicon integrated circuits with adaptive intelligence inspired by sensory information processing in nervous systems; to facilitate advances in computational neuroscience by large-scale emulation of neural models in parallel analog silicon circuits; and to interface silicon with neural cells for restoring lost function in sensory- and motor-impaired patients.”

Cauwenberghs also helped form the IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Technical Committee. He helped launch the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, for which he serves as editor in chief, and he is currently senior editor of IEEE Sensors Journal.

THE CANCER FIGHTER
Battling cancer is in Larry A. Nagahara’s genes. As program director for the Physical Sciences–Oncology Centers Program at the National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda, Md., he coordinates activities related to expanding the role of the physical sciences in cancer research. He was elevated to IEEE Fellow in the technology leader category for his “leadership in nanotechnology devices and measurement applications.”

Much of Nagahara’s work has been applied to nanoelectronics and nanosensors which, he says, could have a big potential impact in biomedical applications such as the early diagnosis of cancer, monitoring a patient’s entire system, and tracking patients’ responses to treatment.

Nagahara is managing his institute’s efforts in exploring innovative approaches to better understand and control cancer, using what he calls “new, perhaps unorthodox, ways.”

In his program, 12 teams of scientists from the physical sciences, engineering, life sciences, and oncology are working together to examine cancer through new eyes. “The convergence of these often disparate areas of science is critical to better understand the physical and chemical forces that shape and govern the emergence and behavior of cancer,” he says.

As with many of this year’s Fellows, Nagahara says his participation in IEEE activities helped shape his career and understanding of his technical field. “Through IEEE activities such as conferences, I was exposed to the numerous IEEE societies,” he says. “Nanotechnology is one area that crosses many of these societies and shows how a professional society can bring together people with different expertise and perspectives to accelerate understanding and commercial application.”

For the entire list of 2011 IEEE Fellows, visit the Fellows Web site, where you can nominate a colleague for the 2012 class. Nominations are due 1 March 2011.

Mandatory Injury & Illness Prevention Training for INC personnel

The Institute for Neural Computation will be having an IIPP Group Training class Tuesday November 9, 2010

There are two sessions scheduled for this event.

Session 1:
IIPP Training (non-research)
9:00am-Nov. 9, 2010

Location:
San Diego Supercomputer Center, East Annex,
Level B1, South Wing, INC Main Area
Located on Hopkins Drive, next to RIMAC, facing the Eucalyptus Grove

Session 2:
IIPP Training (lab personnel/research)
2:00pm-Nov. 9, 2010

Location:
San Diego Supercomputer Center, East Annex,
Level B1, South Wing, INC Main Area
Located on Hopkins Drive, next to RIMAC, facing the Eucalyptus Grove

Lucy Dang will be coordinating the set up of the group training; however, if you wish to get training on your own before then, please feel free to do so through the UC Learning Center.

Learn how to access Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) safety training.

Purpose

UC San Diego developed the Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) in response to a state law that requires safety training for all employees. The program's purpose is to help employees understand and avoid on-the-job risks.

Requirement

All employees must attend an IIPP course once during their career at UCSD. New employees should attend within 30 days of hire. This includes student employees, graduate students, and visiting scholars who receive compensation from UCSD.

How to get the training

• Laboratory/research personnel:
  • Visit the UC Learning Center and use the course catalog or search box to locate this class: Laboratory Safety Principles/IIPP
• Non-research personnel:
  • Visit the UC Learning Center and use the course catalog or search box to locate this class: Injury and Illness Prevention Program

Group training

IIPP training can be customized for your work group and presented upon request. Group sessions are often the best use of everyone's training time, and often a successful way for supervisors and safety coordinators to get employees to a training seminar.

• Contact the EH&S safety training manager for details.

Date: Tuesday, October 5th

Time: 5:30pm – 7 :30pm

Location: INC Lobby, SDSC, Level B1 (east entrance off of Hopkins Dr.)

R.S.V.P. to: Luisa (m2flores@ucsd.edu) by 9/28.

*Please Note: all Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows are expected to attend.

Institute for Neural Computation, Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center, and Center for Research in Language Fellowship Welcome Reception.

Date: Friday, October 3, 2008

Time: 4pm – 6pm

Location: Eucalyptus Point, Room B, University of California, San Diego