Gina G. Turrigiano

Dr. Gina G. Turrigiano is a Professor of Biology and Joseph Levitan Chair in Vision Science at Brandeis University. Dr. Turrigiano’s research has illustrated that nervous systems balance needs for plasticity and stability through homeostatic plasticity mechanisms that allow neurons to sense how active they are and to adjust their properties to maintain stable function. Through this work, she essentially created a new and rapidly growing research area of synaptic scaling. Her 1998 Nature paper, which established synaptic scaling at neocortical synapses, is now a classic in the field and has given rise to numerous studies in labs around the world. Turrigiano’s work shows remarkable breadth, taking the study of homeostatic plasticity from invertebrates to the cerebral cortex, and from cellular and molecular mechanisms to the role of homeostatic plasticity in the intact mammalian cortex during experience-dependent development. Her discoveries promise to have far-reaching implications for understanding of brain function; they are likewise beginning to generate important new insights into the genesis of pathological brain states such as epilepsy and autism. Turrigiano has received numerous awards for her work including a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, MacArthur Foundation award, McKnight Foundation Technological Innovation and Neurobiology of Disease awards, an NIH Director’s Pioneer award, and the HFSP Nakasone award. Her publications appear in prominent journals such as Cell, Neuron, Neuroscience, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.