Prof. Irwin Levitan Department of Neuroscience and Farber Institute for Neurosciences, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia USA

Irwin Levitan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Levitan received his undergraduate, Masters and PhD degress in biochemistry from McGill University, Canada. After postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and the... read moreUniversity of California at San Diego, he was a group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland where he began investigations of the regulation of neuronal excitability in the marine mollusc Aplysia. Subsequently, at Brandeis University, he began investigating the modulation of ion channel proteins, using a combination of molecular and biophysical approaches. He continued with these approaches as Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and now at Thomas Jefferson University. His laboratory is interested in the long term regulation of neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission. They study the molecular mechanisms that nerve cells use to modulate the activity of individual ion channels, since these mechanisms must contribute to long term changes in neuronal function and ultimately in behavior. He uses a combination of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and electrophysiology, at the level of individual neurons, synapses and ion channels. Dr. Levitan is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including two successive National Institutes of Health Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Awards; and two awards from the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. He is the President of the Association of American Medical School Neuroscience Department Chairs, a position he assumed in 2010.