Beth Stevens facts for kids

Beth Stevens (born 1970) is a top scientist who studies the brain. She is a professor at Harvard Medical School and works at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Stevens has helped us understand how tiny brain cells called microglia and special proteins called complement proteins work. They help "prune" or remove connections between brain cells (called synapses) as the brain grows. She also found that if microglia don't work right, it might lead to brain problems like autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's.

In 2012, Dr. Stevens's team showed that microglia actually "eat" synapses. They mainly remove the weak or unused ones. This discovery showed that microglia, which are usually known as immune cells, play a big role in how our brain gets "wired" as we grow. It helped explain how the brain, which starts with many extra connections, gets rid of the ones it doesn't need. A science journal called Neuron said her paper was the most important one they published that year.

Early Life and Education

Beth Stevens was born in 1970 in Brockton, Massachusetts. Her mom was an elementary school teacher, and her dad was the principal.

She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Biology, from Northeastern University in 1993. While studying, she worked full-time in medical labs. Later, she earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003.

After her Ph.D., Dr. Stevens did more research at Stanford University School of Medicine until 2008. There, she studied how other brain cells called astrocytes help form connections between neurons. She found that these cells can make neurons "tag" young, weak connections to be removed.

What Dr. Stevens Researches

Today, Dr. Stevens is a research associate at Boston Children's Hospital. She is also a professor at Harvard Medical School. She leads the Stevens Lab, where her team studies how brain cells talk to each other. They want to understand how these talks help create, remove, and change brain connections (synapses) when we are healthy and when we have diseases.

Dr. Stevens's work has shown how important microglia are and how they relate to brain diseases.

In 2007, she found that certain proteins are needed to remove synapses. She has looked into how these proteins might be involved in diseases like schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and glaucoma.

Dr. Stevens and her former student, Dorothy P. Schafer, showed that microglia help control how active neurons are. They do this by "eating" synapses that have been tagged by special proteins. Microglia are like the clean-up crew of the brain. They look around, clear away old cell parts, and connect with neurons to help "prune" synapses as we learn and grow. They even suggested that microglia should be included in the way we think about how brain connections work.

Dr. Stevens has also found that microglia play a part in losing synapses in many diseases. This includes infections like West Nile virus and brain diseases like Alzheimer's. In Alzheimer's, synapse loss happens even before brain cells die. Her research suggests that in these diseases, microglia might start "pruning" too much, which is good when the brain is developing but harmful in an adult brain. She also found that microglia contribute to Rett syndrome, another brain disorder.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Stevens has received many awards for her important discoveries. Some of them include:

• John Merck Fund
• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
• Smith Family Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research
• Dana Foundation Award (Brain and Immunoimaging)
• Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award
• MacArthur Fellows Program

The MacArthur Foundation gave Dr. Stevens an award of $625,000. This money helps her continue her studies on brain cells. She was one of only 9 women out of 24 people to receive this award.

In 2012, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). This award is given by the U.S. government to young scientists. In 2015, she gave one of four special lectures at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. This is the world's largest meeting for brain scientists. She shared this honor with three other scientists, two of whom had won the Nobel Prize.

In 2018, Dr. Stevens was named an HHMI Investigator. This is a very respected title for scientists.

Personal Life

Beth Stevens is married to Rob Graham.