Undergraduate Program in Neurobiology to begin classes winter quarter

Bill Catterall, center, chair of the Neurobiology Program steering committee, introduces Carla Shatz, speaker for the inaugural lecture, to UW President Richard McCormick.

The Undergraduate Program in Neurobiology, one of the projects supported by the University Initiatives Fund, had its public debut last week with an inaugural lecture by Dr. Carla Shatz, an internationally known neuroscientist.

The new program, which offers a major in neurobiology for undergraduate students, has accepted its first class of 48 students and will begin classes winter quarter. Six new faculty members will join the program; three of those have already been hired.

In remarks before the lecture, UW President Richard L. McCormick noted that neurobiology is one of the great scientific endeavors of our time and promises to yield fundamental understanding of such human attributes as cognition, language and complex behavior. It also promises to give new insights into causes and treatments for now-intractable diseases of the nervous system, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

“We hope,” McCormick said, “that UW graduates from this new program may contribute to some of these exciting prospects for the future in their own careers as scientists, physicians, health care professionals or teachers.”

The proposal for the Undergraduate Program in Neurobiology was developed by a steering committee with representatives from each of the six departments, some in the School of Medicine and some in the College of Arts and Sciences, involved. Dr. William Catterall of Pharmacology chairs the group. Other School of Medicine members are Dr. Anita Hendrickson of Biological Structure, Dr. Wayne Crill of Physiology and Biophysics and Dr. Daniel Dorsa of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. From the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Ellen Covey represents Psychology and Dr. James Truman represents Zoology.

The steering committee named a program director, Dr. William Moody, professor of zoology, who has hired staff and developed lectures and laboratories for the new major.

At the inaugural lecture, presented Nov. 23 in Kane Hall, Shatz spoke on “Form from Function: Neural Activity Sculpts Connectivity in the Developing Visual System.” She is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a former president of the Society for Neuroscience. ¶

Claire Dietz