The brain is the seat of our intelligence, emotions, language, memories and so much more. How does it work?  Professor Elena Seiradake will be discussing aspects of what is known about the biology of the brain and what goes wrong in some common diseases and disorders of the brain. She will look at the beautiful and complex mechanisms by which molecules work together to bring about the different functions of the nervous system.  

The “neuron star” image shows neurons that have been coloured according to some of the molecular structures they contain

Elena grew up in Germany, the US and Greece. She studied biology as an undergraduate student in Germany, did her PhD in France and her postdoctoral research in Oxford. She started her own research group at Oxford in 2014, became an associate professor affiliated to Somerville College in 2017 and was promoted to full professor in 2020. Elena moved to Beckley with her little son Johnny and husband Aris in 2021. Elena has a long-standing research interest in how molecular events underpin brain development and function. 

This talk will be in the pub and not recorded