BME Special Seminar - Vidita Vaidya, PhD

Description

We welcome Dr. Vidita Vaidya for a special seminar. Dr. Vaidya is the Senior Professor and Chairperson for the Department of Biological Sciences at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Monoamines: Boosting Neuronal Powerplants

Abstract: Monoamines are evolutionarily ancient molecules that were co-opted as neurotransmitters. In my talk I will discuss the impact of monoamines on neuronal mitochondria, and the role of specific serotonergic and noradrenergic receptors in mediating the effects on mitochondrial biogenesis and function. I will then go on to discuss the pathways via which monoaminergic neurotransmission impacts mitochondria, implicating the master modulators of mitochondrial biogenesis - Sirt1 and PGC1-alpha. This talk will also flesh out the implications for therapeutic agents that target these pathways, namely serotonergic psychedelics, SSRIs and NARIs, and the relevance to treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

Bio: Vidita received her undergraduate training in Life Science and Biochemistry at St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai. She obtained her doctoral degree in Neuroscience at Yale University with the late Professor Ronald Duman, and after postdoctoral fellowships at the Karolinska Institute and Oxford University she returned to a faculty position at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 2000. She is a Senior Professor at TIFR and a fellow of the Indian Academy of Science. She received the National Bioscientist Award in 2012, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Medical Sciences in 2015, and the Infosys Prize for Life-Sciences in 2022. She was awarded the Nature Award for Excellence in Mentorship in India in 2019. Her research group is interested in understanding the neurocircuitry of emotion, its modulation by life experience and the alterations in emotional neurocircuitry that underlie complex psychiatric disorders like depression. She is committed to enhancing equity, diversity and inclusion in academia.