Colin J. Barnstable was named chair of the Department of Neural and Behavioral Sciences in the Penn State College of Medicine, effective Aug. 1. Barnstable joins the College of Medicine after nearly two decades at Yale University School of Medicine, most recently as professor and vice-chair of research in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science. He also is professor of neurobiology and past director of the interdepartmental neuroscience graduate program at Yale University.
"The recruitment of Dr. Colin Barnstable to Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Hershey Medical Center underscores our commitment to advancing Penn State forward as an internationally recognized leader in the neurosciences," said Harold L. Paz, dean of the Penn State College of Medicine and chief executive officer of Penn State Hershey Medical Center. "I am confident that with the arrival of this distinguished scientist, Penn State Hershey Medical Center will significantly advance neuroscience research from the laboratory to the patient bedside. Given the many patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and other devastating neurological disorders that diminish quality of life or end it prematurely, the investments we are making in the neurosciences will be vitally important for generations to come."
Barnstable has published more than 160 peer-reviewed publications and is a series editor for a set of research textbooks in ophthalmology. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience, and the Journal of Neurochemistry and is currently on the editorial boards of Molecular Neurobiology and Experimental Eye Research. Barnstable has served on a number of National Institutes of Health (NIH) Study Sections and on the advisory boards of several research foundations, including the Foundation Fighting Blindness (Canada), The Macular Vision Research Foundation, and the COBRE program of the LSU Neuroscience Center.
"I am honored and excited at the opportunity to lead Penn State College of Medicine's Department of Neural and Behavioral Sciences into a period of growth and increasing excellence," said Barnstable. "The tremendous advances in molecular biology, imaging and computational neuroscience made in recent years have given us unprecedented opportunities to understand the mechanisms that control normal function and pathological disturbances of the nervous systems. With the commitment of the College of Medicine to develop strength in neuroscience, I am confident that we will build an internationally recognized program that will have a very positive impact on our understanding and treatment of neurological diseases."
Barnstable began his faculty career in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School in 1980. He was a member of the faculty at the Rockefeller University for five years before moving to Yale. Barnstable is internationally recognized for his studies of mammalian visual system development and structure. For this work, he has received numerous awards and honors, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (1984-1986), Demuth Swiss Medical Foundation International Award in Neuroscience (1988), Jules & Doris Stein Research to Prevent Blindness Professor (1988-1996), and Senior Scientific Investigator, Research to Prevent Blindness Inc. (1999-2001).
Barnstable earned his undergraduate degree in biochemistry in 1975 at University College, Oxford, England, and his doctorate in genetics at Wolfson College, Oxford, England, in 1978. He then came to the United States, where he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School from 1978-1980.
The Department of Neural and Behavioral Sciences in the Penn State College of Medicine was formed in 2003. Research in neural and behavioral sciences is aimed at understanding the ways in which the nervous system works at the cellular and molecular level as well as delineating the role of the nervous system in the maintenance of health and in the pathophysiology of various diseases including hypertension, drug addiction, autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Maple Syrup Urine disease, multiple sclerosis, restless legs syndrome, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and stroke.