Pasko Rakic, MD, PhD, the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience and professor of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine, will be the third speaker in the 2016 Senior Vice Chancellor’s Laureate Lecture Series, a yearlong program highlighting top biomedical researchers in their fields. Dr. Rakic’s lecture, “Development and Evolution of the Cerebral Cortex,” will take place at noon on Thursday, May 12, in Lecture Room 6, Scaife Hall.

Dr. Rakic’s research focuses on the cellular events and molecular mechanisms that govern the development of the mammalian central nervous system. He and his lab members investigate the regulation of cell proliferation and death (apoptosis), which ultimately determines the number of neurons allocated for constructing the cerebral cortex. They explore molecular mechanisms involved in neuronal migration, including cell-cell recognition, neuron gli interaction, and nuclear translocation. Dr. Rakic and colleagues are studying neuronal genesis and the migration of the developing cerebral cortex in rodents, macaque monkeys, and humans by using a variety of in vitro and in vivo assays and the most advanced methods in molecular genetics, including identification of enhancers and promoters that are active during cortical development in these three species.

Dr. Rakic received his MD in 1960 from the University of Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia. He undertook a residency in neurosurgery in Belgrade before completing a neurosurgery clinical and research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He then returned to Belgrade and obtained a PhD in developmental biology and genetics in 1969 before joining the faculty of Harvard Medical School. In 1978, Dr. Rakic joined Yale University as founding chair of its Section of Neurobiology, which became the Department of Neurobiology in 2001. He remained department chair until last year. He also directed Yale’s Kavli Institute for Neuroscience for 10 years.

Dr. Rakic’s numerous honors and awards include the inaugural Kavli Neuroscience Prize in 2008, Bristol-Myers Squibb Award, Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Award, Karl Spencer Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society, Krieg Cortical Kudos award, and the F.O. Schmitt Medal and Prize in Neuroscience. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine and was president of the Society for Neuroscience.