Salk Institute researcher named Pew Scholar

June 29, 2006

Salk Institute researcher named Pew Scholar

June 29, 2006

La Jolla, CA – 萨奇达南达·潘达, 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.

Panda’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.

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.

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.

Most recently, Panda’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.

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.

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.

索尔克生物研究所（Salk Institute for Biological Studies）是一家位于加利福尼亚州拉霍亚的独立非营利组织，致力于基础生命科学领域的研究、改善人类健康以及培养未来的研究者。其创始人乔纳斯·索尔克医学博士（Jonas Salk, M.D.）于1955年研发的脊髓灰质炎疫苗几乎根除了这种致残性疾病。1965年，在圣地亚哥市政府赠予土地和“March of Dimes”组织的财政支持下，研究所正式落成。.