GABA, GABA, GABA… : From receptor trafficking to stress resilience

About the Speaker:
Bernhard Luscher has joint appointments as Professor in the Department Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State University Park and a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Medicine in Hershey. Before Penn State, he was an Oberassistent (Assist Prof equivalent) at the Institute of Pharmacology of the University of Zurich, which is where in 1990 he started making and analyzing GABA-A receptor KO mice and to use such animals to investigate and model mechanisms underlying affective disorders and antidepressant drug action. He received a Diploma in Natural Sciences/Biochemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Zurich, and postdoctoral training at UC Berkely. At Penn State Dr. Luscher was the founding director of The Center for Molecular Investigation of Neurological Disorders (CMIND, 2020 - 2024). He served as Interim co-Director of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute (four years), as co-director of the Neuroscience graduate program (2 years) and as organizer of the campus wide Neuroscience seminar Series (ten years). In 2018 he was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Life and Health Sciences by Penn State and the Eberly College of Science.