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The biographies of faculty members of the new Centre for the Neurobiology of Stress at the University of Toronto at Scarborough demonstrate scholarship at the highest levels in molecular, cellular and physiological aspects of neuroscience.
More in-depth information on research activities can be found in the individual web sites of CNS faculty members (click on the links below to view faculty profiles).
Ian Brown | Michelle Aarts | Rudy Boonstra | Suzanne Erb | James Gurd
Rene Harrison | Gwen Ivy | Bill Milgram | Joanne Nash | Ted Petit | Stephen Reid
Ian Brown
Professor of Molecular Neurobiology
Director of the Centre for the Neurobiology of Stress at the University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC).
Ian is lead investigator on the successful application to establish the Centre at UTSC that resulted in an infrastructure award in December 2000 of $3.8 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT). In the same month he was appointed Canada Research Chair Tier I by the federal government of Canada. Professor Brown is a molecular biologist who has pioneered the study of the stress response in the mammalian nervous system and its role in repair and protective mechanisms. He edited the first book in the field ("Heat Shock Proteins in the Nervous System', Academic Press, 1994) and organized the first international conference on 'Cell stress genes in the nervous system'. Professor Brown has published 127 scientific papers on the neural stress response and on gene expression in the developing mammalian brain. Since 1994 he has delivered 30 invited symposium addresses and research seminars at universities and research institutes around the world. He has been a Senior Visiting Investigator at the Scripps Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Professor Brown has served on the NSERC grant committee for Molecular and Developmental Genetics for the government of Canada and on NIH grant panels for Molecular Neurobiology for the US government.
View Ian Brown's Webpage
Michelle Aarts
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Dr. Aarts is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Signal Transduction in Ischemia. Dr. Aarts' general research interests lie in the cellular communication pathways that influence cell death and survival in complex tissues following periods of ischemic stress (stroke or heart attack). Of particular interest are signal transduction pathways downstream of plasma membrane calcium channels. Of particular interest are signal transduction pathways downstream of glutamate receptors, transient receptor potential (TRP) channels and tissue-specific kinases. Dr. Aarts' laboratory research uses a multidisciplinary approach from molecular biology and proteomics to cellular and animal models of disease in order to gain information about key cell death pathways.
View Michelle Aarts' Webpage
Rudy Boonstra
Professor of Ecology & Evolution and Physiology
Dr. Boonstra studies the role of stress in natural populations. The objective of his research program is understand the adaptations that mammals and birds in real world have to maximize their fitness, how the stress axis serves that goal, and what happens when these adaptations are insufficient. It targets four key areas 1) the impact of stress on population demography; 2) the role of the stress axis in physiological aging; 3) maternal effects and the impact of chronic stress (high predation risk) to explain long-term demographic change; 4) the evolution of the stress axis. He is also working closely with colleagues in the investigation of neurogenesis in natural populations: its regulation and functional significance in wild mammals. He has published research articles on stress physiology, neuroendocrinology, population and community ecology, population regulation, and neurogenesis. The research takes place throughout Canada (such as Alberta, Ontario, and the Yukon), Australia, and elsewhere.
View Rudy Boonstra's Webpage
Suzanne Erb
Associate Professor of Psychology
Suzanne's general research interests concern the neurobiology of relapse to drug seeking and the interface between neurobiology and behavior in the study of substance abuse. I am particularly interested in how the brain changes at neurotransmitter system and gene expression levels as a consequence of a history of drug exposure, and how these changes are manifest in behavior. Although a number of significant neurobiological changes occur in the early stages of drug withdrawal (first several days), it is the potential for enduring, long-term changes (those that persist or may only emerge after weeks or months of withdrawal), and how these changes may render a former user vulnerable to episodes of relapse, that is of particular interest to me.
View Suzanne Erb's Webpage
James Gurd
Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry
Professor Gurd is an international authority on the isolation and molecular characterization of synaptic components from the normal and stressed brain. His current research focuses on the effects of ischemia and other stressors on the biochemical composition and molecular organization of synapses in the central nervous system (synapses serves as the communication point between neurons in the brain). His work is supported by NSERC, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and The Canadian Stroke Network. His research has attracted graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from around the world. Professor Gurd has served as Chair of the Division of Life Sciences at UTSC.
View James Gurd's Webpage
Rene Harrison
Associate Professor of Zoology
Rene's research interests are in the area of cell polarity. Reorganization of cytoplasm and creation of unique plasma membrane domains is a shared phenomenon amongst various cell types to carry out their specialized functions. Such dramatic cell shape changes are orchestrated by the cytoskeleton, principally microtubules which extend throughout the cytosol. This proteinaceous network serves as a conduit for the delivery of key signaling proteins and membrane elements required for the consequent cell surface morphological changes.
View Rene Harrison's Webpage
Gwen Ivy
Professor of Cellular Neurobiology
Gwen is highly skilled in the use of imaging technology to explore stress-induced changes in brain cells. Her research deals with the mechanisms of change that occur in brain cells during aging, in certain neurodegenerative diseases and following neural stress. Professor Ivy has given many invited talks at conferences on aging around the world and is a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology and National Institute for Longevity Science. She is Secretary and on the Board of Directors of the American Aging Association. Professor Ivy has published 80 research papers in her field, edited a book and organized several international symposia on the cellular mechanisms of aging.
View Gwen Ivy's Webpage
Bill Milgram
Professor of Neuroscience
Bill is an expert in the neural circuitry involved in stress responses. His research activity centres on the brain's response to seizures and the effect of aging on cognition and brain structure. Professor Milgram's research is supported by very large grants from the National Institute of Aging (USA) and NSERC with additional industrial support from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. He has published 84 papers, edited a book on "Neuroplasticity, Learning and Behaviour', and is writing a textbook on 'Behavioural Neuroscience' for Prentice Hall. He is part of a large research group with Professor Cotman at the University of California at Irvine and Professor Muggenberg at the Loveland Research Institute in New Mexico that is involved in a long term analysis of aging and cognitive decline.
View Bill Milgram's Webpage
Joanne Nash
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
Dr. Nash's interests are focussed on understanding the cell and molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration and symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). In PD, cell death involves multiple sub-cellular mechanisms, which are likely to synergise. We are using high throughput screening and real-time imaging to identify exactly how these mechanisms interact, so that molecular targets to prevent neuronal cell death might be identified. Symptoms of PD are caused by synaptic re-organisation and changes in synaptic plasticity within the striatum. Research in the lab is focussed on characterising striatal protein complexes, how these change in PD, and how these can be modulated to normalise the parkinsonian striatum. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop more effective treatments for PD.
View Joanne Nash's Webpage
Ted Petit
Professor of Neuroscience
Ted is an international authority on the effect of stressors on the ultrastructure of synapses in the brain. He has documented the effects of stressors such as denervation, lead toxicity, aging and neural activation on synaptic ultrastructure. Professor Petit's research studies have demonstrated that synapses undergo a series of stress-induced changes that appear to represent a common pathway by which neurons respond and adapt to stress. He is founding Director of the Program in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto and founding Director and organizer (for the past 9 years) of the Annual Winter Conference on Neural Plasticity.
View Ted Petit's Webpage
Stephen Reid
Associate Professor of Zoology
Stephen Reid's research interests lie in the broad field of respiratory physiology and the neural control of breathing. One of the major themes of his research focuses on breathing pattern formation in vertebrates. Most people generally think of breathing as a continuous process of inspiration and expiration that that continues non-stop. However, many animals, including lower vertebrates and some hypo-metabolic mammals, breathe discontinuously or in episodes with clusters of breaths separated by periods of no breathing or apnea. Dr. Reid's research focuses on how the central nervous system regulates episodic breathing and how central mechanisms are modulated by feedback from blood O2 and CO2 chemoreceptors and from stretch receptors in the lungs. These studies, which focus predominately on amphibians such as Cane toads, utilise isolated brainstem-spinal cord preparations which allow for the study of CNS mechanisms in isolation.
View Stephen Reid's Webpage
