Symposium to honor genetics research at UCLA, recognize donors
By Adrienne Law
Sept. 24, 2008 9:53 p.m.
The Gonda Neuroscience and Genetics Research Center will host an all-day public symposium for its 10th anniversary tomorrow in the Neuroscience Research Building Auditorium.
The symposium will be presented by the UCLA Brain Research Institute, the Department of Human Genetics and the Department of Pediatrics, all of which work in collaboration with the research center as their home.
The event is called “Progress in Understanding Genetic Diseases.”
One of the goals of the event is to publicly thank and honor the donors, Leslie and Susan Gonda, said Kenneth Lange, the chair of the UCLA Department of Human Genetics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
The symposium also serves to teach the community about different aspects of genetic diseases and genetics research at UCLA that relate to inherited diseases such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease and some heart diseases and metabolic disorders, said Christopher Evans, director of the Brain Research Institute.
“(The event will) educate the public about the nature of the work going on in the Gonda building,” Lange said.
The talks are not intended to be strictly for genetic experts. The material difficulty will be between graduate and layman level, perhaps suited for life science undergraduate students, Lange said.
Though some faculty presenters see patients, all presentations will focus on basic science as opposed to patient care, he said.
The eight speakers of the symposium consist of researchers or physicians who will speak about their area of study, chosen by a faculty committee from the research building.
The committee chose speakers who have timely and interesting topics to present for both scientists and layman audiences. They also wanted speakers who worked in the Gonda building and have used its resources, said Michael Levine, the chair of the neuroscience doctoral program who was part of the faculty committee.
In 1998, the Gonda family donated more than $45 million, making the building and the research inside it possible, Lange said.
According to Forbes.com, Leslie Gonda, who resides in Beverly Hills, is No. 1014 of the world’s billionaires.
The Gondas have been visiting UCLA regularly and are still interested in the research done in their building, Lange said.
Lange added that there is a huge dependence and constant need for donors to support the research center and that he appreciates the philanthropic donation of the Gondas.
Before the building existed and before the donation, the human genetics department was failing because there was no adequate space to house it, Lange said.
“We really depend on donors. … We have money coming in all the time,” he said.
People of the building say that despite their differences, the three groups housed in the research center have a central theme.
“There is a huge stress in genetics, even within the Brain Research Institute,” Lange said.
Faculty say that the Brain Research Institute has lately focused on neuroscience’s connection to genetics.
“We’re basically an umbrella institute trying to organize neuroscience activities on campus and training researchers and (participating) in outreach,” Evans said.
Evans added that the Gondas are very interested in fusing neuroscience and genetics, which has helped the progress of research in their research center for the last decade.
“Things have moved enormously in genetics for the past 10 years at UCLA and in the world,” he said.
Neurogenetics, or the study of the association between genes and brain functions, is a particular topic that has been intensely researched in the building since its inception, Levine said.
The department of genetics trains graduate students, some of them belonging to the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Lange said.
In the building, researchers investigate a variety of research on genetics, such as the genetic susceptibility of inherited diseases and genetic markers of those diseases, Evans said.
“This building does research from fly to man,” Evans said, adding that researchers in the building investigate the genetics of a variety of species.
Speaker Dr. Daniel Geschwind researches autism at the human level, while Dr. Ming Guo, another presenter, studies flies to investigate the disease-causing genetics of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, he said.
The building also houses one laboratory from the Department of Pediatrics led by Dr. Edward McCabe, physician-in-chief of the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. McCabe said he will be presenting the topic of “Exploring Complexity in Inborn Errors of Metabolism: Novelty and NanoPediatrics.”
Faculty say that the presentations in the symposium are designed to represent the scope of research in the laboratories of the research center.
The mission of the Gonda (Goldschmied) Neuroscience and Genetics Research Center is to teach the community about genetics, neuroscience and pediatrics research that mostly relate to human genetics, Levine said.
Evans said he enjoys working with friendly faculty who have strengthened the building’s mission.
“My hopes are that the community gets an appreciation of the progress in genetics and neurogenetics made in the past decade,” Evans said.
