Meningeal Lymphatics In Brain's Health
and Disease

Description:

About the speaker: Dr. Jonathan (Jony) Kipnis’s research group focuses on the complex interactions between the immune system and the central nervous system. The goal is to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of these interactions in neurodegenerative, neurodevelopmental, and mental disorders as well as in physiology (including healthy aging).  Dr. Kipnis’s research team showed that the brain function is dependent, in part, on the function and integrity of the immune system and that immune molecules (cytokines) can play a neuromodulatory role. The fascination with immunity and its role in healthy and diseased brain is what brought the team to a breakthrough discovery of 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. The implications of this work are broad and range from Autism to Alzheimer’s disease through neuroinflammatory conditions, such as Multiple Sclerosis.  Dr. Kipnis graduated from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he was a Sir Charles Clore scholar and a recipient of distinguished prize for scientific achievements awarded by the Israeli Parliament, The Knesset.  Dr. Kipnis joined UVA faculty in 2007. He is now a Harrison Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Neuroscience. Since 2015 he is also a Gutenberg Research College Fellow at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Medical Center, Germany. In 2018 he received a prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer’s award to explore in more depth neuro-immune interactions in healthy and diseased brain.