Deisseroth Lab, Stanford University

Group Members

Principal Investigator

KARL DEISSEROTH
deissero at stanford.edu

Karl received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1992, his PhD from Stanford in 1998, and his MD from Stanford in 2000. He completed postdoctoral training, medical internship, and adult psychiatry residency at Stanford, and he was board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 2006. He is Associate Professor of Bioengineering and Psychiatry at Stanford. His bioengineering laboratory is located in the Clark Center, and he treats patients in a new interventional psychiatry-focused clinic at Stanford. In his spare time he likes flyfishing for trout and is trying to figure out flyfishing for bass.

Staff Scientists

BRET SCHNEIDER - Staff Scientist
schn at stanford.edu

Bret Schneider studies and develops neuromodulation technologies for interventional psychiatry and regenerative medicine. He obtained a BA from Washington University in St. Louis, an MD from Rush Medical College, and did a clinical residency in Psychiatry at UCLA. He completed a fellowship in Stereotactic Radiosurgery and a fellowship in Advanced Psychiatry at Stanford. Bret is presently Consulting Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosurgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As a board-certified psychiatrist, he has a private practice in Palo Alto specializing in the use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).

Post-docs

	LIPING WANG lpwang at stanford.edu Liping Wang received his medical degree from Chengde Medical College, Chengde, China and worked on neurosurgery and thoracic surgery before pursuing his PhD. In his PhD study, he has been involved in the International Graduate Program in Medical Neuroscience at Charité- University Medicine Berlin, Germany and work with Prof. Dr. Helmut Kettenmann at the Dept. of Cellular Neurosciences, Max-Delbruck-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin, on the study of the electrophysiological properties of neural progenitor cells in adult brain. Research Interests: Neural stem cells, electrophysiology
	VIKAAS SOHAL vikaas at stanford.edu Vikaas received his bachelor degree from Harvard and MD/PhD from Stanford. He is currently a medical resident in psychiatry.
	KIM THOMPSON thompski at stanford.edu Kim received her doctoral degree in Neuroscience from UCLA where she studied in the laboratory of Dr. Kelsey Martin as a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Her thesis work focused on determining how nuclear import pathways target synaptically generated signals to the nucleus where they can alter gene transcription necessary to stabilize persistent changes in synaptic strength. Presently, her research focuses on understanding the experience-dependent plasticity mechanisms contributing to neural circuit dysregulation underlying depression.
	MELISSA WARDEN mwarden at stanford.edu Melissa received her A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in Systems Neuroscience from MIT. During her graduate work with Earl Miller in systems neurophysiology, she studied the neural basis of multi-item short term memory in the prefrontal cortex.
	DAVID LIN sdlin at stanford.edu David, a native of Taiwan, received his MD from National Taiwan University. While pursuing his PhD in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, mentored by Dwight Bergles, he studied NG2 cells, a type of glia maintaining stem cell-like properties. His thesis elucidated modes of synaptic communications between neurons and NG2 cells, the only known example of such neuron-glia interactions. David is currently a neurosurgery resident at Stanford.
	ILKA DIESTER diester at stanford.edu Ilka received her diploma degree (~MSc) in Biology from the Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany in 2003. In her diploma thesis she worked on gene mapping at the Max-Delbrueck-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Berlin and the Witswatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa. In her Ph.D. study with Andreas Nieder at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, she studied the neural basis of abstract number representations and symbol-like signs in the prefrontal and parietal cortex and investigated the role of neuronal subclasses in categorization tasks. Since October 2008, Ilka is a joined postdoc in the labs of Karl Deisseroth and Krishna Shenoy.
	OFER YIZHAR yizhar at stanford.edu Ofer received his bachelor degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. During his PhD studies at the Tel Aviv University he studied the pre-synaptic mechanisms of neurotransmitter release using electrophysiological and imaging techniques and developed software for single-vesicle tracking in time-lapse movies. Ofer is interested in developing and applying new optogenetic tools to the study of neuropsychiatric disease.
	INBAL GOSHEN igoshen at stanford.edu
	CHRIS LEE-MESSER chris at lee-messer.net
	JIN HYUNG LEE ljinhy at stanford.edu
	ILANA WITTEN iwitten at stanford.edu Ilana received her BA from Princeton in Physics in 2002 and her PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford in 2008. As a postdoc in the Deisseroth lab, she is interested in the computational principles underlying reward learning, attention and other cognitive phenemena. She enjoys backpacking, sunshine, cooking and farmer's markets when she isn't in lab.
	RAMIN PASHAIE raminp at stanford.edu Ramin was born in Tehran, Iran. He received his bachelor degree in electrical engineering - electronics and circuit design. He continued his studies toward a master degree in the fields of electromagnetics, microwave, and electromagnetic optics. Then he joint the electrical and systems engineering department at the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) where he finished his PhD program under supervision of Professor Nabil Farhat. In Farhat's lab, Ramin worked on modeling and optoelectronic realization of an artificial Cortex. After a short postdoctoral period in Professor Nader Engheta's Lab at UPENN, he joint Deisseroth lab at Stanford as a postdoc where he is working on developing new optoelectronic instruments for optogenetic applications and brain light delivery systems.
	DIVYA CHANDER dchander at stanford.edu Divya received a BA from Harvard, and an MD/PhD from UCSD where she studied neural coding in the retina. In 2007 she completed her residency at UCSF in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, and was board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in 2008. When Divya is not in the lab or OR, she loves Latin dancing, and is grinding a mirror to build a telescope.
	KAY TYE kaytye at stanford.edu Kay received her bachelor's degree from MIT and did her Ph.D. work at the Gallo Center at UCSF in the laboratory of Patricia H. Janak studying in vivo electrophysiology in awake behaving rats and stayed on for an extra year as a joint post-doc with the laboratory of Antonello Bonci where she studied learning-induced synaptic plasticity in acute slice preparations of recently trained rats. Kay is currently working on using optogenetic tools to dissect the neural circuitry underlying emotional valence.
	POLINA ANIKEEVA anikeeva at stanford.edu Polina received her Ph.D. in applied physics from MIT. She loves climbing and tinkering with the electronic gadgets in the lab.

Graduate Students

	RAAG AIRAN rairan at stanford.edu Raag graduated from MIT in 2003 with bachelor degrees in Physics and Math and did his junior-year abroad studying Physics at Cambridge University. He is in Stanford's MD/PhD (MSTP) program and the Bioengineering Department. Currently, Raag is working on using voltage-sensitive dye imaging to visualize electrical activity propagation across slices created from models of psychiatric disease.
	FENG ZHANG zhangf at stanford.edu Feng graduated from Harvard in 2004 with a bachelor degree in Chemistry and Physics. He is a graduate student in the Chemistry Department.
	VIVIANA GRADINARU viviana at stanford.edu Viviana graduated from Caltech in 2005 with a bachelor degree in Biology. She is a graduate student in the Neuroscience Ph.D Program.
	HSING-CHEN TSAI hct at stanford.edu Hsing-Chen received her B.S. in Medical Technology in 1998 from Chang Gung Medical School in Taiwan. She furthered her training and obtained an MS in Molecular and Cell Biology from the same University in 2000. In 2003, she obtained an MS in Molecular Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is currently enrolled in the Neuroscience Ph.D Program at Stanford.
	MURTAZA MOGRI mmogri at stanford.edu Murtaza graduated with Bachelors degrees in Bioengineering/Biotechnology and Math/Computer Science from UC San Diego where his research focus was in bioinformatics and systems biology. After graduating in 2004, he worked at Nellcor/Tyco Healthcare developing a novel noninvasive medical device. Before Stanford, he also worked at NINDS (NIH) in Dr. Jeffrey Smith's lab as an ORAU post-bac fellow where he automated the analysis of electrophysiology data, studied the persistent sodium channel, and helped develop a new dynamic clamp program. Murtaza is currently a graduate student in Bioengineering.
	RAGU VIJAYKUMAR rvjkumar at stanford.edu
	REMY DURAND remyd at stanford.edu Remy received his Bachelors degree in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH where he did research on improving neural-electrical interfaces. He has completed internships at Philips Electronics and Northstar Neuroscience where he worked on the design and testing of implantable neural modulation devices. Currently, Remy is working on the development and application of novel optical stimulation and readout modalities for understanding neuropsychiatric disorders.
	LISA GUNAYDIN gunaydin at stanford.edu
	JOANNA MATTIS jmattis at stanford.edu Joanna received a BS in Biology from Yale in 2006 and an M.Phil in Physiology, Development, and Neuroscience from Cambridge University in 2007. She is in the MD/PhD program (MSTP) and the Neurosciences Ph.D Program at Stanford.
	LIEF FENNO lfenno at stanford.edu Lief received his Bachelors degree in neurobiology from Harvard, where he worked at the intersection of human embryonic stem cells and Parkinson's disease. Afterward, he continued this endevor at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston before joining the Stanford Neuroscience program. He's currently working with the effort to engineer opsins with novel functions and investigating depression.
	ROHIT PRAKASH ropra at stanford.edu Rohit received his B.S. in Physics and Philosophy at UNC-Chapel Hill. He worked at the NIH for a brief time afterwards and now is an M.D./Ph.D. student in the neuroscience program. He is currently working on the two-photon.
	RYAN SQUIRE rsquire at stanford.edu Ryan earned his Bachelors degree from Oberlin College where he majored in Neuroscience in addition to studying Music and Chemistry. During the course of college Ryan pursued research with Ed Callaway (Salk), Dan Feldman (UCSD), Charles Gilbert (Rockefeller), and Dennison Smith (Oberlin) and developed a deep-seated excitement in the application of molecular tools to problems in systems neuroscience. He is currently pursuing these interests with much enthusiasm as a graduate student in Neuroscience at Stanford.

Staff

CYNTHIA DELACRUZ - Executive Assistant
cdelacruz at stanford.edu

Research Assistants


CHARU RAMAKRISHNAN		SALLY PAK		ZHIQIANG CHEN

Undergrads


HANNAH BERNSTEIN		HOSNIYA ZARABI

Alumni


RAGHU YABALURI M.S. 2005	NANDHINI NANDIWADA SANTHANAM M.S. 2007	YUQING GONG M.S. 2006

ED BOYDEN POSTDOC 2005-2006	CATHY HAN M.S. 2007	VICKI PARENTE B.S. 2007

MYRIAM CORDEY POSTDOC 2005-2006	ALBRECHT STROH POSTDOC 2006-2007	ALEX ARAVANIS POSTDOC 2006-2007

MANI ROY SCIENTIST 2005-2007	ELLORA KARMARKER UNDERGRAD 2005-2007	LESLIE MELTZER GRAD STUDENT 2004-2008