{"id":1883,"date":"2006-06-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vermont.salk.edu\/news-release\/salk-institute-researcher-named-pew-scholar\/"},"modified":"2006-06-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-29T07:00:00","slug":"salk-institute-researcher-named-pew-scholar","status":"publish","type":"disclosure","link":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/es\/news-release\/salk-institute-researcher-named-pew-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"Salk Institute  researcher named Pew Scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>La Jolla, CA  \u2013 <a href=\"\/es\/faculty\/panda.html\/\">Satchidananda Panda<\/a>, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the  Regulatory Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has  been named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. He is one of only 15  researchers in the country to receive the honor this year. The distinction  comes with a $240,000 award provided over four years to support his research on  the molecular basis of circadian timekeeping mechanisms in mammals.<\/p>\n<p>Panda&#8217;s work focuses on understanding how the day-night  cycle determines the optimum time for sleep, appetite and physiology, which  could lead to new therapies for circadian rhythm-related disorders such as  depression, jet lag and sleep disorders.<\/p>\n<p>He recently discovered a novel photoreceptor called  melanopsin that measures the color and intensity of light in our eye and  instructs a biological clock in the brain to appropriately adjust to the  natural light-dark cycle. This process helps us readjust our biological clock  during a shift in work schedules, jet travel, and seasonal change in day  length.<\/p>\n<p>Although light sensitive as well, melanopsin is different  from rod and cone opsins, its biological cousins in the retina that help us  see. Melanopsin is present only in a few hundred specialized cells, but they  have a direct link to the brain. They send electrical messages in response to  changing lighting conditions and are preserved in many blind patients. He hopes  to one day impart at least partial vision to blind individuals with the help of  gene therapy that introduces re-engineered photoreceptors to cells in the  retina.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, Panda&#8217;s research team concentrated its  efforts on understanding how this new sensor detects light and converts the information  to a chemical signal that travels to deep regions of the brain. <\/p>\n<p>A native of India,  Panda received his doctorate in Macromolecular, Cellular, and Structural  Chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla,  California, He was recruited to the Salk  Institute for Biological Studies after completing his post-doctoral studies at  the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego, California.<\/p>\n<p>The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides  crucial support to investigators in the early stages of their career who show  outstanding promise in the basic and clinical sciences. The program is funded  by the Pew Charitable Trusts through a grant to the University  of California, San Francisco. Since its inception, the Pew  Charitable Trusts has invested more than $100 million to support approximately  400 scholars. Panda is the 13th Salk Institute researcher to be  named a Pew Scholar since the awards were launched in 1985.<\/p>\n<p>The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California,  is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to fundamental discoveries  in the life sciences, the improvement of human health and the training of  future generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, M.D., whose polio vaccine all  but eradicated the crippling disease poliomyelitis in 1955, opened the  Institute in 1965 with a gift of land from the City of San Diego and the financial support of the  March of Dimes.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","faculty":[105],"disease-research":[],"class_list":["post-1883","disclosure","type-disclosure","status-publish","hentry","faculty-satchidananda-panda"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Salk Institute researcher named Pew Scholar - Salk Institute for Biological Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/es\/news-release\/salk-institute-researcher-named-pew-scholar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Salk Institute researcher named Pew Scholar - Salk Institute for Biological Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"La Jolla, CA \u2013 Satchidananda Panda, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has been named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. 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