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July 2005
Volume 69 |
Number 7 |
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| 2005 Annual
Meeting Plenary Session |
 obel
Prize Laureate Gerald M. Edelman, M.D., Ph.D., will speak
on “From Brain Dynamics to Consciousness: How Matter
Becomes Imagination” at the plenary session scheduled
for Sunday, October 23, from noon to 12:50 p.m. at the Morial
Convention Center. This session is included in the neuroanesthesia
learning track at the 2005 Annual Meeting. Tickets are not
required.
Dr. Edelman is Director of The Neurosciences Institute and
President of Neurosciences Research Foundation, the publicly
supported not-for-profit organization in La Jolla, California,
that is the Institute’s parent. He is also Professor
at The Scripps Institute and Chair of the Department of
Neurobiology at Scripps, also in La Jolla, California.
He has made significant research contributions in biophysics,
protein chemistry, immunology, cell biology and neurobiology.
His early studies on the structure and diversity of antibodies
led to the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1972.
He then began research into the mechanisms involved in the
regulation of primary cellular processes, particularly the
control of cell growth and the development of multicellular
organisms. He has focused on cell-cell interactions in early
embryonic development and in the formation and function
of the nervous system.
These studies led to the discovery of cell adhesion molecules
(CAMs), which have been found to guide the fundamental processes
by which an animal achieves its shape and form, and by which
nervous systems are built. One of the most significant insights
provided by this work is that the precursor gene for the
neural cell adhesion molecule gave rise in evolution to
the entire molecular system of adaptive immunity.
Most recently, he and his colleagues have studied the fundamental
cellular processes of transcription and translation in eukaryotic
cells. They have developed a method to construct synthetic
promoters and have also been able to enhance translation
efficiency by constructing internal ribosomal entry sites
of a modular composition. These findings have rich implications
for the fields of genomics and proteonics.
Dr. Edelman has formulated a detailed theory to explain
the development and organization of higher brain functions
in terms of a process known as neuronal group selection.
This theory was presented in the 1987 volume of Neural
Darwinism, a widely known work. Dr. Edelman’s
continuing work in theoretical neuroscience includes designing
new kinds of machines, called recognition automata that
are capable of carrying out tests of the self-consistency
of the theory of neuronal group selection and promise to
shed new light on the fundamental workings of the human
brain.
A new, biologically based theory of consciousness extending
the theory of neuronal group selection is presented in his
1989 volume The Remembered Present. A subsequent
book, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, published in
1992, continues to explore the implications of neuronal
group selection and neural evolution for a modern understanding
of the mind and the brain. His book published with Giulio
Tonioni, titled A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter
Becomes Imagination, presents exciting new data on
the neural correlates of conscious experience. His latest
book, Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness,
offers a model of the biology of consciousness.
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