Spotlight Live: Zika Virus and the Brain
by Lindsay Borthwick
The race to uncover how Zika damages the brain—and whether that damage can be prevented.
The Author
The Researchers
At the forefront of this race are three neuroscientists who have spent their careers studying how the brain develops from a tiny sphere of unspecialized cells into an adult brain with billions of nerve cells and characteristic form. A flurry of research papers provide the first experimental evidence of how Zika attacks immature brain cells and disrupts the carefully orchestrated events that ultimately build a healthy brain.
The Kavli Foundation hosted a live webcast with neuroscientists Arnold Kriegstein, Guo-li Ming and Hongjun Song about Zika's effects on the brain, plus what it’s like to do research during a public health emergency.
About the Participants
- ARNOLD KRIEGSTEIN, MD, PhD - is Professor of Neurology and Director of the Stem Cell Biology Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is also a member of UCSF's new Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience.
- GUO-LI MING, MD, PhD - is Professor of Neurology and of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she is member of the new Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute.
- HONGJUN SONG, PhD - is Professor of Neurology and Director of the Stem Cell Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a member of Johns Hopkins' Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute.
- LINDSAY BORTHWICK (moderator) – is a freelance journalist with more than a decade of experience covering science, health and the environment. She covers neuroscience for The Kavli Foundation.