Dr. Muotri moved to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies as Pew Latin America Fellow in 2002 for a postdoctoral training in the fields of Neuroscience and Stem Cell Biology and has been a Professor at UC San Diego since 2008. His research focuses on human brain development and evolution, exploring mobile elements as generators of neuronal diversity. Muotri’s lab is also interested in modeling neurological diseases, such as autism, using human induced pluripotent stem cells. He has received several awards, including the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, NARSAD and the Emerald Foundation Young Investigator Award. He earned a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the State University of Campinas and a Ph.D. in Genetics from University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

 

Luke Lairson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI); Principal Investigator, California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr)

Dr. Lairson received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Guelph, prior to completing a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of British Columbia with Stephen G. Withers. He was a visiting Fellow of the Royal Society at the University of Oxford and completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Peter G. Schultz at The Scripps Research Institute.