Caltech Neuroscientist Named to Institute of Medicine

PASADENA, Calif.-- Richard A. Andersen, the James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology, has been elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Andersen is one of 65 new individuals to be admitted to the elite organization, which was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences and now has 1,538 active members. It is recognized as a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on human health issues. By their membership, inductees agree to volunteer their time on IOM committees examining health policy issues.

Andersen studies the neurobiological underpinnings of brain processes, including the senses of sight, hearing, balance, and touch, and the neural mechanisms of action and is a pioneer in the development of implanted neural prosthetic devices that would serve as an interface between severely paralyzed individuals' brain signals and their artificial limbs--allowing thoughts to control movement. Andersen says, "It's a very exciting time in neuroscience. After decades of study, our basic research is finally yielding findings we are able to translate into clinical advancements to help paralyzed people. Caltech has provided a unique environment for such study, as we in our lab have enjoyed close collaboration with bioengineers, electrical engineers, economists, and physicists as well as clinicians toward developing a neural prosthesis. The next step is to move our studies into clinical trials with human patients, an endeavor we will enter jointly with the medical community."

Andersen received his PhD from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1979, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He was on the faculties of the Salk Institute and MIT before joining Caltech in 1993. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the recipient of a McKnight Foundation Scholars Award, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Spencer Award from Columbia University, a McKnight Technical Innovation in Neuroscience Award, and a McKnight Neuroscience Brain Disorders Award. The new members of the IOM will be formally inducted during the annual meeting, which is scheduled for October 12-13, 2008.