Nature Forum 
From the Eye to the Brain

Thomas Christian Südhof obtained his M.D. and doctoral degree in biophysics from the University of Göttingen and trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Drs. Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein at UT Southwestern in Dallas, TX. After postdoctoral training, Südhof stayed as a faculty at UT Southwestern in Dallas, where he was the founding chair of the Department of Neuroscience. In 2008, Südhof became the Avram Goldstein Professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. Südhof’s research originally focused on how an action potential in a presynaptic neuron triggers the secretion of neurotransmitters, which initiates synaptic transmission.

This work revealed a general mechanism of regulated secretion, for which Südhof was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in 2013. More recently, Südhof’s studies have centered on how synapses in brain are formed and how their properties are shaped, resulting in the identification of trans-neuronal signaling mechanisms that control synaptic connections in brain. Moreover, Südhof’s work has addressed how these synaptic connections become impaired in disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, with the hope of gaining insight into possible new therapeutic avenues.

Pedram Hamrah, MD, FRCS, FARVO, is a NIH-funded clinician-scientist with a focus on corneal immunology, ocular pain, ocular imaging (Immuno- and Neuro-imaging of the cornea), and ocular surface diseases. He received his medical degree from the University of Cologne in Germany, and performed his residency in Ophthalmology at the University of Louisville, where he was elected chief resident during his last year. He has completed fellowships in Ocular and Transplantation Immunology at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, and in Ocular Immunology at the University of Louisville, as well as a two-year clinical fellowship in Cornea, External Diseases and Refractive Surgery at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School. He is currently a Vice Chair of Research and Academic Programs, and a Professor of Ophthalmology, Immunology. Neuroscience and Bioengineering at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he is the Co-Director of the Cornea Service and Director of the Center for Translational Ocular Immunology, and more recently served as Interim Chair of Ophthalmology.  

Prof. Hamrah has been directing both strong laboratory science and prolific clinical research programs, currently holding 3 NIH grant awards, in addition to numerous foundation and industry grants. Prior to joining Tufts, he was on faculty at the Cornea Service of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School for 7 years, where he was also the founder and director of the Ocular Surface Imaging Center. His research is focused on neuro-immune interactions, neuropathic corneal pain, and immune cell trafficking in immune and infections diseases of the cornea, as well as corneal transplantation tolerance and rejection. His clinical focus is on clinical and surgical ocular surface diseases, including neuropathic corneal pain and neurotrophic keratopathy. 

Prof. Hamrah currently serves on over a dozen editorial boards, is an associate editor for The Ocular Surface, Translational Vision, Science & Technology, Ocular Immunology and Inflammation, and Frontiers of Medicine (Ophthalmology), and section editor of the journal Eye. Further, he is ad hoc reviewer for over 70 journals and a regular grant reviewer for the National Eye Institute, FDA, US Army, and numerous national and international foundations. Finally, Dr. Hamrah has been continuously serving on the Members-in-Training, Professional Development and Education and the Ethics and Regulations in Human Research Committees at ARVO since 2003 and is currently an ARVO Gold Fellow, and recently received the AAO Senior Achievement Award. 

Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg is Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Director of the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. His clinical effort is focused on patients in need of medical or surgical intervention for glaucoma and other retinal and optic nerve diseases, as well as cataract. His research is directed at neuroprotection and regeneration of retinal ganglion cells and the optic nerve, a major unmet need in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies, and his laboratory is developing novel molecular, stem cell and nanotherapeutics approaches for eye repair.

Dr. Goldberg received his B.S. magna cum laude from Yale University, and his M.D. and Ph.D. from Stanford University where he made significant discoveries about the failure of optic nerve regeneration. He did his clinical training in ophthalmology and then in glaucoma at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, and was awarded a fellowship from the Heed Foundation. He was named the 2010 Scientist of the Year by the Hope For Vision foundation, and received the Cogan award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in 2012. He was elected in 2010 to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, an honorary society of physician scientists, and in 2021 to the American Ophthalmological Society. He directs an NIH-funded research laboratory and is one of the scientists funded by the National Eye Institute’s Audacious Goals Initiative. In addition, he has developed significant expertise with implementing FDA clinical trials for optic nerve neuroprotection and regeneration. His goal is to translate scientific discoveries to patient therapies.

Elliot Mufson, PhD, is a professor of neurobiology, the Greening Chair for Neuroscience Research, and the director of the Alzheimer’s disease research laboratory at Barrow Neurological Institute.

Dr. Mufson’s expertise includes Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegenerative disease. He is a member of the Society of Neuroscience, American Association of Anatomists, International Brain Research Organization and the International Alzheimer’s Association.

Dr. Mufson received his doctorate from Downstate Medical Center, New York, in biological psychology and he was a research fellow in neurology at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Dr. Mufson’s research includes trophic factors in aging and Alzheimer’s disease, central cholinergic systems in Alzheimer’s disease, and neuroanatomy of cortical and limbic areas in primate brain.

A board-certified hematologist, Dr. Hempstead investigates molecules called growth factors that regulate cellular behaviors, with a particular focus on factors known as neurotrophins. Scientists have long known that neurotrophins promote neuronal growth and survival, but can cause neuronal death or dysfunction following injury from conditions such as a stroke or seizure. Dr. Hempstead discovered that precursors to neurotrophins, called pro-neurotrophins—previously thought to be biologically inactive—are responsible for these deleterious effects. Using basic and translational approaches, Dr. Hempstead seeks to understand the conditions under which proneurotrophins act, and identify compounds that can inhibit their negative functions. These findings may have important implications for diseases that affect other biological systems, such as the vasculature.

Dr. Hempstead has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for more than three decades, and four patents have been filed for her work. She has published more than 130 scholarly papers in journals including Nature and its specialized publications, Science, Cell, and Neuron. Dr. Hempstead has been recognized nationally and internationally for her scientific contributions. She is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation—where she was also a national counselor—and the American Association of Physicians, and served on the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Board of Scientific Councilors. Dr. Hempstead is a past recipient of the Irma T. Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trust Award and Burroughs Wellcome Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research.

Dr. Hempstead received her bachelor's degree in biology in 1976 from Tufts University, and her medical degree and doctorate in cellular biology in 1982 from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis' Medical Scientist Training Program. She completed her residency in internal medicine, followed by a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Hempstead joined Weill Cornell Medicine’s faculty in 1987, rising through the academic ranks to professor of medicine in 2001. She joined the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences’ faculty in 1994 and 1995 in the Neuroscience Program and the Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology program, respectively. Dr. Hempstead served as co-chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology from 2004-2012, when she was appointed associate dean for faculty development and led the institution’s efforts to foster junior faculty members’ professional growth. She served in that role until 2016; in 2015 Dr. Hempstead was appointed senior associate dean for education.

Dr. Baoji Xu earned a bachelor’s degree from Xiamen University in China in 1983, a master’s degree from Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology, Chinese Academy in 1986, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1995. His doctoral dissertation research in the laboratory of Professor David Clayton involved understanding the mechanisms that control replication of mitochondrial DNA, with support of a predoctoral fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation.  

Xu did his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Louis Reichardt at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Francisco, from 1996 to 2001, studying the role of neurotrophins in the cerebral cortex and in weight control. After briefly working on the development of obesity therapeutics at Chiron Corporation (currently Novartis Emeryville Research Center in California), Xu joined Georgetown University as an assistant professor in 2003.

At Georgetown University, Xu carried out a highly successful research program and published many papers in prominent journals. He received an American Heart Association Scientist Development Award and was funded by numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Diabetes Association, Klarman Family Foundation, March of Dimes Foundation and Whitehall Foundation.

Dr. José-Alain Sahel is the chair and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, director of the UPMC Eye Center, and the Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair of Ophthalmology.  Dr. Sahel, who was born in Algeria, studied medicine at University Denis Diderot, Paris VII, and Ophthalmology at University Louis Pasteur Strasbourg University. He received his medical degree with a Medal of the Faculty of Paris and obtained his specialty certification in ophthalmology. He completed a residency in Ophthalmology at the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Strasbourg. He also was a research fellow at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a visiting scholar in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.  Dr. Sahel founded and directed from 2008 to 2020 the Vision Institute in Paris and currently an exceptional class professor at the Sorbonne’s medical school.

Dr. Sahel is known worldwide for his expertise in vision restoration techniques. He has developed several interventions— including stem cell implantation, gene therapy, innovative pharmacologic approaches, and retinal prostheses—for retinitis pigmentosa, other retinal dystrophies, age-related macular degeneration, and other vision impairments that currently are untreatable e.g. Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.  Over the past decade he has led pioneering efforts in optogenetic vision restoration, a technique in which cells in the retina are genetically modified to express light sensitive proteins. This therapeutic technique has the potential to help patients who are blind or visually impaired as a result of a genetic defect.  His team has developed novel high resolution imaging technologies for retinal and optic nerve conditions. Dr. Sahel also brings a strong neuroscience perspective to ophthalmology research, such as exploring the application of brain-computer interface technology.

• Professor of Population Sciences, 
• Professor of Physiology, 
• Biophysics and Systems Biology,
• Weill Cornell Medical College
• Professor and Chief,
• Mathematics in Medicine,
• Professor of Computational Biology,
• Department of Medicine,
• The Houston Methodist Research Institute
• Adjunct Professor of Imaging Physics,
• MD Anderson Cancer Center

With a degree in Medical Chemistry from The Sapienza University of Rome, Marcello is a member of the American Chemical Society since 1988 and the Italian Chemistry Society since 2006.

After a brief period as a university researcher, he joined Dompé as a team leader, followed by a period as Research Director and, since 2009, as a Chief Scientific Officer.

He leads Dompe’s Research and Development activities and pre-clinical and clinical drug development programs - from active ingredient identification to market authorization - including relationships with international regulatory authorities.

Marcello also holds a number of university teaching positions and maintains his scientific interests, with published work in over forty scientific journals. He is Associate Editor for several journals.

He has also filed over thirty international patents.