- Carla J. Shatz
Carla J. Shatz, Ph.D., is an American
neurobiologist and a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences , the National Academy of Sciences, and theInstitute of Medicine .Carla Shatz graduated from
Radcliffe College in 1969 with a B.A. inchemistry . She received an M.Phil. in Physiology from theUniversity College London in 1971. In 1976, she received aPh.D. inneurobiology fromHarvard Medical School , where she studied with theNobel laureates David Hubel andTorsten Wiesel . From 1976 to 1978 she obtainedpostdoctoral training with Dr.Pasko Rakic in the department ofneuroscience , Harvard Medical School. In 1978, Dr. Shatz moved toStanford University , where she began her studies of the development of themammalian visual system in the department of neurobiology. She became professor of neurobiology in 1989. In 1992, she moved her laboratory to the department of molecular and cell biology at theUniversity of California, Berkeley , where she became aHoward Hughes Medical Institute investigator. During 1994-1995 she was president of theSociety for Neuroscience and served on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences from 1998 to 2001. From 2000 until 2007, she was the chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology. She also helped to develop the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair (now named the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, http://neurodiscovery.harvard.edu) and led the Harvard Center for Brain Imaging. Dr. Shatz is currently the director of the Bio-X program atStanford University School of Medicine .Research
Dr. Shatz contributed to elucidate the basic principles of early brain development. She found that the
spontaneous activity ofneurons in utero is critical for the formation of precise and orderlyneural connections in thecentral nervous system . Her recent work shows that waves of spontaneous activity in theretina can altergene expression and the strength of synaptic connections.Awards
Dr. Shatz's many honors include the Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award, the Gill Prize presented by the Indiana University Gill Center for Biomolecular Sciences, the Silvo Conte Award from the National Foundation for Brain Research, the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Health and Education, the Alcon Award for Outstanding Contributions to Vision Research, the Bernard Sachs Award from the Child Neurology Society, and the
Weizmann Women & Science Award . She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, theInstitute of Medicine , theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences , theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science , and theAmerican Philosophical Society . In 1997 she was invited by PresidentBill Clinton and First LadyHillary Clinton to speak at the White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning.Major publications
Sretavan D, Shatz CJ. (1984)Prenatal development of individual retinogeniculate axons during the period ofsegregation.Nature 308(5962):845-8.
McConnell SK, Ghosh A, Shatz CJ. (1989)Subplate neurons pioneer the first axon pathway from the cerebral cortex.Science 245(4921):978-82.
Ghosh A, Antonini A, McConnell SK, Shatz CJ. (1990)Requirement for subplate neurons in the formation of thalamocorticalconnections.Nature 347(6289):179-81.
Meister M, Wong RO, Baylor DA, Shatz CJ. (1991)Synchronous bursts of action potentials in ganglion cells of the developingmammalian retina.Science 252(5008):939-43.
Ghosh A, Shatz CJ. (1992)Involvement of subplate neurons in the formation of ocular dominance columns.Science 255(5050):1441-3.
Wong RO, Chernjavsky A, Smith SJ, Shatz CJ. (1995)Early functional neural networks in the developing retina.Nature 374(6524):716-8.
Katz LC, Shatz CJ. (1996)Synaptic activity and the construction of cortical circuits.Science 274(5290):1133-8. Review
Penn AA, Riquelme PA, Feller MB, Shatz CJ. (1998) Competition in retinogeniculate patterning driven by spontaneous activity.Science 279(5359):2108-12.
Catalano SM, Shatz CJ. (1998)Activity-dependent cortical target selection by thalamic axons.Science 281(5376):559-62.
Stellwagen D, Shatz CJ, and Feller MB. (1999) Dynamic processes of a developing retinal circuit are controlled by c-AMP, Neuron 24: 673-685.
Huh GS, Du H, Boulanger LM, Riquelme P, Brotz TM, and Shatz CJ. (2000) Functional requirement for Class I MHC in CNS development and plasticity. Science 290:2155-2159.
Man-Kit Lam D and Shatz CJ. (Eds.) Development of the VisualSystem. MIT Press, 1991. ISBN 0-262-12154-9.
Stellwagen D, Shatz CJ. (2002) An instructive role for retinal waves in the development of retinogeniculate connectivity. Neuron 33:357-367.
Kanold PO, Kara P, Reid RC, and Shatz CJ. (2003) The subplate is required for functional maturation of visual cortical columns. Science 301:521-525.
Boulanger LM, Shatz CJ. (2004) Immune signaling in neural development, synaptic plasticity, and disease. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5: 521-531.
Tagawa Y, Kanold PO, Majdan M, Shatz CJ. (2005) Multiple periods offunctional ocular dominance plasticity in mouse visual cortex. NatureNeuroscience 8(3):380-8.
Kanold PO, Shatz CJ. (2006) Subplate neurons regulate maturation of cortical inhibition and outcome of ocular dominance plasticity.Neuron 51(5):627-38.
Syken J, Grandpre T, Kanold PO, Shatz CJ. (2006) PirB restricts ocular-dominance plasticity in visual cortex. Science 313(5794):1795-800.
Majdan M, Shatz CJ. (2006) Effects of visual experience on activity-dependent gene regulation in cortex. Nature Neuroscience 9(5):650-9.
References
*http://www7.nationalacademies.org/interviews/greenroom_shatz.html
*http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Carla_Shatz/
*http://www.science2006.pitt.edu/shatz.htm
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