PERSONNEL
John H. Byrne received his Ph.D. (Bioengineering) from the Polytechnic
Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University) in 1973. Both his graduate
studies and postdoctoral training were conducted in the laboratory of Eric
Kandel. His research has focused on investigating mechanisms of neuronal
plasticity, learning and memory. He has used a multi disciplinary approach,
which includes behavior studies, cellular neurophysiology, molecular biology
and mathematical modeling.
Douglas A. Baxter received his Ph.D. (Neuroscience) from The
University of Texas in Austin in 1981. His graduate studies were conducted
in the laboratory of Dr. George Bittner, and his postdoctoral training
was with Drs. Dan Johnston (Baylor College of Medicine) and Tom Brown (Beckman
Research Institute at the City of Hope). Dr. Baxter's research has focused
on examining mechanisms of neuronal plasticity, learning and memory. His
approach has been to combine cellular neurophysiological experiments with
detailed mathematical modeling. In addition, Dr. Baxter and his colleagues
have developed a general purpose simulation environment for simulating
single neurons and small networks. This program was first introduced in 1994,
and can be accessed from our SNNAP website.
Paul D. Smolen received his Ph.D. (Biophysics) from the University
of California in Davis in 1990. His graduate studies were conducted in
the laboratory of Dr. Joel Keizer, and his postdoctoral training was with
Dr. John Rinzel (Mathematical Research Branch, NIDDK, National Institutes
of Health). Dr. Smolen's research has focused on mathematical modeling
of several current topics in cell biology. Most recently, he has developed
a preliminary model of biochemical aspects of long-term facilitation of
the Aplysia sensory-motor neuron synapse (Smolen et al., 2001b), and two
models emphasizing the common aspects of circadian rhythm generation in
Drosophila and the fungus Neurospora (Smolen et al., 2001a). He has also
published models to help explain glycolytic oscillations, the effects of
pancreatic cell heterogeneity on the dose-response curve for insulin secretion,
and mechanisms of neuronal bursting.
Mohamed S. Habib earned his Ph.D ( Biochemistry) from Madurai
University, India in 1978, under the guidance of Prof A. Gnanam. His thesis
was on the elucidation of regulatory aspects of carbon flow during photosynthesis.
Dr. Habib had his postdoctoral training in Dr. Anderson’s Lab in University
of Illinois, Chicago and Dr. Steck’s Lab in University of Chicago.
In Chicago, he mastered all aspects of isolation, purification and characterization
of membrane-bound proteins (LEMs) in green thylakoid membrane and tyrosine
protein kinase in red cell membrane. He later joined the Dept. of
Biochemistry, Baylor College of Medicine and studied the molecular cloning
and heterologous expression of fatty acid synthase from yeast; he also
focused on the functional consequences of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation
of acetyl-CoA carboxylase, a key enzyme in fatty acid metabolism,
in association with Dr. Salih Wakil. Later, he joined the Dept. of
Neurology at Baylor studying the immunological basis of amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS) in humans, in association with Dr. Stanley Appel.
Presently, he studies the biochemistry and molecular biology of short
term and long term memory acquisition, consolidation and storage in lower
and higher eukaryotes.
Evyatar Av-Ron received his Ph.D. (Computer Science
and Applied Mathematics) from the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel)
in 1992. His graduate studies were conducted with Dr. Lee Segel and Dr.
Hanna Parnas (Hebrew University, Neurobiology) focusing on minimal biophysical
neuron models for computer simulation of small neural networks (lobster/crab
cardiac network). During his postdoctoral training at Ecole Normale
Superieue (Paris, France) and French national institute of health
(INSERM) he continued his research in computational neuroscience studying
insect olfaction and the mammilian ocular vestibular system. From
1997 to 2001, he worked in the high-tech software industry, on an object-oriented
database system, and a rule-based knowledge system. His M.Sc. from the
Weizmann Institute (Israel) was in Artificial Intelligence.
Diasinou Fioravante received her
B.A. from the American College of Greece in 1999. That same year she joined
the laboratory of Dr. Byrne as a graduate student to work toward her Ph.D.
Her research involves the delineation of cellular and molecular mechanisms
underlying short- and long-term synaptic plasticity. To this end, she uses
biochemical, molecular and electrophysiological techniques.