In this issue:

CENTER ESTABLISHES SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

The Center is very pleased to announce the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board, chaired by Nobel Laureate, Dr. Leon Cooper. Its membership represents clinical and basic sciences of relevance to the Center's goals and programs. The Board meets periodically to assess the Center's scientific progress and thematic focus. This issue provides short biographies for each Board member:

Leon Cooper, PhD (Chair)

Christopher Born, MD

Elizabeth Brainerd, PhD

Jerome Sanes, PhD

G. Tayhas R. Palmore, PhD

Leon Cooper, PhD (Chair)

Dr. Cooper is the Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Science at Brown University. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1954 and holds seven honorary doctorates. In 1972 he received a Nobel Prize in Physics for studies on the theory of superconductivity. He has also received the Comstock prize of the National Academy of Sciences, the Award of Excellence from Columbia University, the Descartes Medal from the Academie de Paris, Universite Rene Descartes. Dr. Cooper's current research studies neural networks --including architecture, learning rules, and real world applications, the biological basis of memory and learning, mean field theories, the foundations of quantum theory, and superconductivity.

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Christopher Born, MD

Dr. Born is Professor of Orthopaedics and Chief of Orthopedic Trauma at Brown University. He received his MD from Georgetown University and completed his Orthopaedic residency at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Born is a member of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association where he currently serves as Chariman of its Mass Causality Response Committee, and is on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Orthopaedic Trauma. He writes and lectures extensively on issues of musculoskeletal trauma and disaster management both nationally and internationally. In 2004, he traveled to Iran with the International Medical Surgical Response Team of FEMA to give humanitarian aid to victims of a massive earthquake.

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Elizabeth Brainerd, PhD

Dr Brainerd is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. She received her PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. Her research combines anatomical studies of the musculoskeletal system with principles and techniques from engineering to understand the mechanical basis of movement in animals. Current projects include: biomechanics of the temporomandibular joint, biomechanics of segmented axial musculature in fishes and salamanders, pennate muscle architecture, and the functional morphology and physiology of yawning and pandiculation.

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Jerome Sanes, PhD

Dr. Sanes is Professor of Neuroscience at Brown University. He received his PhD from the University of Rochester. His interests are in understanding brain mechanisms of voluntary movement and motor learning. Several brain regions, including the frontal and parietal lobes, the basal ganglia, and the cerebellum, have involvement in voluntary movements and these areas become engaged when humans learn and then consolidate new motor skills. Dr. Sanes is studying these problems with magnetic resonance imaging technology that assesses focal changes in blood flow and by assessing movement patterns while humans perform various movement tasks.

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