Ben Barres facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ben A. Barres
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| Born | September 13, 1954 West Orange, New Jersey, U.S.
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| Died | December 27, 2017 (aged 63) Stanford, California, U.S.
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| Known for | Neuroscience |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neurobiology |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
| Doctoral advisor | David Corey |
Ben A. Barres (September 13, 1954 – December 27, 2017) was an American neurobiologist at Stanford University. His research focused on the interaction between neurons and glial cells in the nervous system. Beginning in 2008, he was chair of the Neurobiology Department at Stanford University School of Medicine. He transitioned to male in 1997, and became the first openly transgender scientist in the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
Early life and education
Barres was born on September 13, 1954, in West Orange, New Jersey, assigned female as Barbara A. Barres. As a child, his salesman father and homemaker mother saw him as a tomboy. He later recalled: "Internally I felt strongly that I was a boy. This was evident in everything about my behavior." Attending a West Orange school, Barres excelled in mathematics and science and was impressed by his eighth-grade teacher, Jeffrey Davis.
At the age of 17, he learned that he had been born with Müllerian agenesis, for which he received surgical correction. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1976), a medical degree (MD) from Dartmouth Medical School (1979), and a residency in neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine. During his residency, Barres noted the lack of knowledge about the causes or cures of neurodegeneration. In studying pathology reports, he noticed a correlation between neural degeneration and irregular patterns of glial cells in the brain and, intrigued, resigned his residency to pursue research in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. He completed a PhD in neurobiology there in 1990, then did postdoctoral training at University College London under Martin Raff. In 1993, Barres joined the faculty of Neurobiology at the Stanford School of Medicine. After transitioning to male in 1997, Barres published on sexism in the sciences. In 2008, he was appointed to the Chair of Neurobiology at Stanford.
Research
Barres authored or co-authored papers in journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, Science, and Cell. His research involved study of mammalian glial cells of the central nervous system (CNS), including the exploration of their function and development. Much of his early work was published under his birth name, Barbara.
His first major discovery was how developing neurons provide signals to the myelinating glial cells called the oligodendrocytes that provide insulation on the axons. Some of his earliest works focussed on vertebrate nervous system development, including how and why many neurons fail to survive shortly after forming connections with their targets. These studies investigated how this programmed cell death, apoptosis, occurred in such a tremendous scale. Additionally, he studied processes such as the prerequisites for and consequences of axon myelination, and the interactions of various signaling molecules such as thyroid-hormone and retinoic acid within the formation of glial cells including oligodendrocytes.
Early in his time at Stanford, Barres discovered the importance of glial cells in the formation, development, maturation, and regeneration of neurons. His lab also discovered and developed methods for the purification and culturing of retinal ganglion cells and the glial cells with which they interact, including the oligodendrocytes and astrocytes of the optic nerve.
Near the turn of the 21st century he continued his study of glial cells and the mechanisms behind their ability to generate new neurons. He studied control of synapses by glia, and the differentiation of astrocytes by endothelial cells. He investigated the role of the protein Id2 in the control of oligodendrocyte development and established that removing this protein led to premature oligodendrocyte maturation.
In the 2010s Barres's research focused on using techniques such as immunopanning, immunohistochemistry, tissue culturing, and patch clamping to: 1) understand the cell-to-cell interactions in the developmental regulation of nodes of Ranvier and myelin sheaths; 2) determine to what extent glial cells play a role in synapse formation and function of synapses; 3) identify the signals that promote retinal ganglia growth and survival, and how such knowledge of these signals could be regenerated post-trauma; 4) identify the functions and developmental mechanisms of gray matter astrocytes. In these objectives, his lab discovered a number of novel glial signals for the induction of myelination, axonal sodium channel clustering, and synapse formation processes. Additionally, his lab characterized these processes and the exact identity of these novel signals.
Death
Barres died on December 27, 2017, some 20 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, at his home in Palo Alto, California. He was survived by two sisters and a brother.
In a recollection of his life, he said:
I lived life on my terms: I wanted to switch genders, and I did. I wanted to be a scientist, and I was. I wanted to study glia, and I did that too. I stood up for what I believed in and I like to think I made an impact, or at least opened the door for the impact to occur. I have zero regrets and I’m ready to die. I’ve truly had a great life.
Awards and honors
Barres's research awards include a Life Sciences Research Fellowship, the Klingenstein Fellowship Award, a McKnight Investigator Award, and a Searle Scholar Award. He has also won teaching awards: the Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Kaiser Award for Innovative and Outstanding Contributions to Medical Education. In 2008 he received the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award. He is inducted member of the Reeve Foundation International Research Consortium on Spinal Cord Injury. He is a co-founder of Annexon Biosciences, Inc., a company making drugs to block neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases. He became a member and elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011. In 2013 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, becoming the first openly transgender member. Along with biochemist Tom Jessell, he was awarded the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2016 conference in San Diego.
See also
In Spanish: Ben Barres para niños
