Davidson Lecture - Jonathan Kipnis
Dr. Jonathan (Jony) Kipnis is BJC Investigator, Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology and Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis, School of Medicine. He is also the inaugural Director of Brain immunology and Glia (BIG) Center at Washington University. Jony graduated from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he was Sir Charles Clore Scholar and a recipient of distinguished prize for scientific achievements awarded by the Israeli Parliament, The Knesset.
The Kipnis lab is dedicated to unraveling the intricate interactions between the immune system and the central nervous system (CNS). It explores the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin these interactions across a spectrum of conditions, including neurodegenerative, neurodevelopmental, and mental disorders, as well as in physiological states like healthy aging. Dr. Kipnis and his colleagues discovered that brain function is partly reliant on the integrity and functionality of the immune system, with immune molecules (cytokines) playing neuromodulatory roles. The fascination with immunity and its role in neurophysiology is what brought the lab to a breakthrough discovery of meningeal lymphatic vessels that drain the CNS into the peripheral lymph nodes and thus serve as a physical connection between the brain and the immune system. This finding challenged the prevailing mechanisms underlying CNS "immune privilege" and opened new avenues to mechanistically study the nature of neuroimmune interactions under physiological and pathological conditions. The implications of this work are broad and range from autism to Alzheimer's disease through neuroinflammatory conditions, such as Multiple Sclerosis.
Kipnis lab has also identified the skull and vertebrae bone marrow niches as local immune reservoirs for the brain and the spinal cord, whose role in neurological disorders is yet unknown. Recently, the lab has unveiled new structures involved in waste removal from the brain, which are also utilized by immune cells for brain surveillance and during pathological neuroinflammation. Additionally, the team has demonstrated that synchronized neuronal oscillations during sleep facilitate the movement of cerebrospinal fluid through the dense brain parenchyma. These discoveries not only elucidate the role of macroscopic brain waves during sleep but also offer novel insights that could lead to more effective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. Earlier this year, Kipnis lab also reported on engineered T cells that could be therapeutically used for neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Kipnis is a member of National Academy of Medicine and among other awards, he is a recipient NIH Director's Pioneer award for 2018 to explore in more depth neuro-immune interactions in healthy and diseased brain.
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This lecture was endowed by Norman Davidson, a scientist with wide-ranging interests. He made important contributions in three different areas. Early in his career, he worked in physical and inorganic chemistry. Based on this work, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1960. From the 1960s until 1980, he was a leading figure in the study of nucleic acids. During this time, his work laid the foundation for understanding nucleic acid hybridization and denaturation, and advanced the use of electron microscopy to map DNA and RNA at the single-molecule level. In his later career, he made numerous contributions to molecular neuroscience. His contributions to science have been recognized by numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science in 1996.