Aging Brain Seminar with Andrew S. Yoo, PhD, Washington University School of MedicineDate: Monday, May 12Time: 4:00pmLocation: 46-3310, Picower Seminar RoomModeling Late-Onset Neurodegeneration Via MicroRNA-Mediated Neuronal ReprogrammingThe Yoo lab's primary goal is to uncover the genetic pathways driving neurogenesis and develop strategies to generate human neurons by directly converting non-neural cells like fibroblasts. We use this approach to model aging of neurons and its link to late-onset neurodegenerative disorders. Our work focuses on brain-enriched microRNAs, miR-9/9* and miR-124, which trigger the direct conversion of fibroblasts into neurons while preserving the cellular age signature. This allows us to create age-matched neurons for studying adult-onset disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease.Andrew Yoo received his bachelor's degree in Neurophysiology from McGill University and his PhD in Genetics and Development from Columbia University. He conducted his postdoctoral work at Stanford University, focusing on the role of the BAF chromatin remodeling complex during neural development. There, he discovered how microRNAs instruct the function of BAF complexes during neurogenesis and demonstrated the potency of microRNAs as regulators of cell fate. His lab developed high-efficiency conversion methods to generate human neurons using microRNAs as cell-reprogramming effectors and to model late-onset neurodegeneration using patient-derived neurons. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House, the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, the Mallinckrodt Scholar Award, and the HDF Transformative Research Award.

Search costs, intermediation, and trade: Experimental evidence from Ugandan agricultural markets | Meredith Startz (joint with IO, Applied Micro, and Trade)

Meredith Startz Dartmouth University (joint with IO, Trade and Devo)

Meredith Startz (Dartmouth)

The Department of Mathematics welcomes École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne professor Thomas Vidick to our annual Simons Lecture Series, May 12-14:Surprises in Quantum Complexity TheoryLecture 1: Some complexity challenges from quantum information Lecture 2: Entanglement, interactive proofs, and approximability Lecture 3: Entanglement, error-correcting codes, and proofsEach day, a reception will be held at 4pm in Room 2-290, followed by the 4:30pm lecture in Room 2-190.This annual lecture series features presentations by top mathematicians. Many thanks to the late Jim Simons and his wife, Marilyn Simons, for their continued financial support of these lectures.