Over the last two years, the Council provided a platform to preview the launch of the Conquering Cancer and the Harnessing Plants Initiatives. An advisory committee was formed for each Initiative and members are serving as advisors and advocates. We are pleased to invite all advisory committee members to attend the 2019 Institute Council program to hear from various Salk faculty members as they share their latest research findings.

At this year’s meeting we will tour two labs that are critical to pushing Salk research forward. We will first visit the Climate Simulation Laboratory, a resource which allows our researchers to study plants in precision growth rooms capable of simulating a range of real-world climates. Our second tour will be of the newly renovated Stem Cell Core Facility in the NANOS Alzheimer’s Disease Stem Cell Suite that supports work involving human stem cells and offers an array of specialized equipment, technologies and services.

We will hear Salk faculty Nicola Allen and Gerald Shadel discuss how Alzheimer’s and other age-related brain disorders are triggered not by a single event, but by a failure of complex, interdependent biological systems in our body that start to break down as we age.

Assistant Professor Eiman Azim will discuss how neural circuits solve the many challenges of dexterous motor control, such as holding a cup of coffee or catching a ball. This knowledge could clarify how injury or disease disrupts the normal execution of movement and pave the way for improved diagnosis and treatment.

We will complete our afternoon with a special keynote address by Beth Sirull, President of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego. She will share how community foundations engage, educate and inspire generations of givers.

For our closing dinner, Professor Satchin Panda will share his latest discoveries related to circadian clocks and what these findings mean for human health. To stay on track with his suggested early time-restricted feeding schedule, we will eat dinner before 7 pm.

We hope to see you May 1!

Laing Rikkers Salk Institute Council Chair

Martin Hetzer, PhD Vice President, Chief Science Officer Salk Institute Council Faculty Liaison