Dr. Eric Kandel, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, will lecture on "The Past, the Future and the Biology of Memory Storage" at the University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ at Boulder on Wednesday, April 11.
The 8 p.m. talk in Macky Auditorium is free and open to the public. The 36th George Gamow Memorial Lecture is intended for a general audience of non-scientists.
Kandel is a professor in Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and a senior investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has received the National Medal of Science, the Albert Lasker Award and the Wolf Prize of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥, and is a member of the National Academies of Science in the United States, Germany and France.
His talk will illustrate how molecular biology and cognitive psychology can be combined in the study of long-term memory. His research has studied the molecular mechanisms of memory storage and the genetic switch for converting short-term to long-term memory.
Kandel will be introduced by Howard Wachtel, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder who earned his doctorate at New York University and was Kandel's first graduate student.
"I particularly recall many occasions on which I drove him back home to the Bronx from our lab at the NYU Medical Center in Manhattan," Wachtel said. "It only took about 30 minutes, but I would usually learn more from our conversations during those drives than from several courses in neurobiology - and I believe I still retain most of it.
"How is it that we can retain such memories so vividly - and for so long? I look forward not only to seeing Eric Kandel again, but to hearing him explain how, biologically, those memories are laid down and retrieved."
The George Gamow lecture series has featured public talks by internationally famous scientists since 1971. The series honors the late ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder physics professor who was pivotal in the origination of the big-bang theory of the creation of the universe. Gamow also was known for his many books popularizing science for non-scientific audiences.
For more information call (303) 492-6952. No reservations are required to attend.