Eric N. Olson, Ph.D.

Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, 11 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Schiciano Auditorium, Fitzpatrick CIEMAS Building

Heart formation involves a precisely orchestrated series of morphologic and molecular events that, if perturbed even subtly, can have catastrophic consequences. Many of the transcription factors that control development of the heart during embryogenesis also regulate remodeling of the adult heart in response to stress signals. Mechanistic dissection of the transcriptional circuits that regulate cardiac gene expression has yielded insights into the molecular bases for congenital and acquired heart disease in humans and has opened opportunities for genetic and pharmacological modification of cardiac function. The gene regulatory mechanisms responsible for cardiac growth, development and disease, and molecular strategies for modifying cardiac form and function through changes in gene expression will be discussed.

Dr. Eric Olson received a B.A. from Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C., and a Ph.D. from Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine, he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center as an Assistant Professor where he rose to the rank of Professor and Chairman. In 1995, he moved to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he is professor and chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology. He holds the Annie and Willie Nelson Professor in Stem Cell Biology Chair.

 

Dr. Olson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. He has been active on many scientific advisory boards and serves on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals.