Brain mapping and modelling human psychiatric/neurological disorders

Common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) attract increasing attention in neuroscience and disease modelling, since they exhibit some enriched human-like traits less exhibited by Old World monkeys. For faithfully modelling human psychiatric and neurological diseases in vivo, Prof. Okano’s lab developed transgenic non-human primates (common marmosets) with germline transmission.

About speaker:
Prof. Hideyuki Okano is currently Dean and Professor in the Department of Physiology at Keio University School of Medicine. Prof. Okano made world history by being the first to discover the existence of neural stem cells in adult brains, providing evidence of the possibility of using these cells in the regeneration of the central nervous system. After researching the differential control mechanisms of neural stem cells using the drosophila fly in the 1990s, Prof. Okano has continued his research through studying the control mechanisms in the neural development of mice and the common marmoset – close in the order of primates to humans.
Prof. Okano serves on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Stem Cell Research and the Japan Neuroscience Society and sits on the editorial boards of several leading scientific journals, including Stem Cells, Stem Cells and Development and Cell Stem Cell.